Welcome to My Workshop—Season 6

It’s hard to believe that nearly six years have gone by since I first started this blog. Here I am back again with all new episodes of “Welcome to My Workshop”. Stay tuned for exciting comedy, drama, adventure, and explosions of sawdust.

A few years ago, when the economy took a nosedive, I stopped traveling to and exhibiting at all the craft shows and art festivals that made up my yearly itinerary. I still go to the San Francisco American Craft Council Show (August 2-4 this year), mainly because it’s close, and I still take part in the Santa Cruz County Open Studios Art Tour the first three weekends in October. I thought dropping so many shows would leave me with too much time on my hands, but it’s just the reverse. I’m busier now with creating new pieces for shows, galleries, and Etsy, as well as restoring antique stringed instruments.

New Work

Around a month ago I decided to create some new versions of older instrument designs I developed over five years ago.

I started out with a wing psaltery, a medieval stringed instrument based on examples in illuminated manuscripts, artwork, and sculptures dating back to the 1200s. It has a sycamore top, maple frame, black walnut back, bindings, and tail pin cover, and a hand-carved tagua nut figure. All woods except the maple frame are salvaged. There are 15 nylon strings tuned to a two-octave C-major scale. They produce a beautiful harp-like tone. It is 26 inched tall, 7 inches wide, and 2.5 inches deep. This psaltery is perfect for medieval and renaissance reenactments, playing early music, meditation, as artwork, or just for fun.

It is now available on my Etsy shop.

Even before the wing psaltery was half completed, I decided to take some of my wood scraps and create two more mini Saxon rotes (lyres). After 40 years of being a woodworker and luthier, I’ve accumulated bins of scrap woods, ranging in size from small 1 or 2 inch blocks to 3 foot long thin pieces left over from the tops and backs of instruments I’ve built.

The first rote is made from kwila and redwood. Kwila is a reddish-brown hard wood that grows in Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia. It was given to me by a friend several years ago. The redwood is salvaged first-growth wood that came out of a Santa Cruz Victorian home that was being remodeled. The wood was about to go to the dump when a lady called me to ask if I wanted some of it. I rescued it from the construction site’s trash pile. It’s beautiful wood with wonderfully straight grain and was likely local grown, right here in Santa Cruz. The bridge and tailpiece are maple, and the two figures on the yoke are hand carved tagua nuts. (Tagua nuts come from a palm in Central and South America.) The tailpiece holder on the bottom is hand-carved black walnut.

The second rote has a top made from two pieces of lovely, figured tiger (or flamed) maple. The back, bridge, tailpiece, and medallions are from scrap maple I had sitting around. The tailpiece holder on the bottom is hand-carved maple.

Each rote is 22 inches long, 6 inches wide, with a body 1 inch deep. They are hollow, and the six nylon strings produce a bright harp-like tone. As I’ve mentioned before, this style is based on 7th and 8th century examples found in burial mounds along the east coast of England. The tuning has been lost to history, so you can tune them any way you want. Very light and portable, they are perfect for renaissance fairs and reenactment gatherings, as artwork, or to just play and enjoy.

Both are available on my Etsy shop.

The third instrument I finished was another Cantigas de Santa Maria trapezoidal psaltery. I still have a couple left that I made several years ago, but I decided to start two more, one for me and one for my young student to carve and complete on his own (under my instruction). Like the wing psaltery, this one has 15 nylon strings tuned to a major scale that produce a harp-like tone. It is 13 inches wide, 11 inches tall, and 2.5 inches deep. Another very portable instrument, great for ren fairs, reenactments, early music, meditation, or to just play and enjoy. This one also comes with a canvas carrying bag.

It’s also available on my Etsy shop.

On the Workbench

With so much going on, I had to put a couple of long-term projects on hold. Now that I’ve completed several projects, it’s time to work on them again.

Back before Christmas last year I started working on a new, larger medieval 3-legged chair. I thought at the time it would only take a few months to complete. Well, 7 months later, I’m finally doing the head carvings that will be on top of the two front legs. Once these are done, I can dry fit the chair again and measure for the 10 back and side pieces I still have to turn.

Another project I started well over a year ago (maybe two years ago now) is my second symphony based on one in the illustrations in the 13th Century Cantigas de Santa Maria illuminated manuscript. This last week I began the laborious process of fret sawing the open design on the lid. I kept putting this off, because I knew it would take around 4 to 6 straight hours of delicate sawing. The image below shows around 3 hours worth of work, and I’m about half way done.

 

Teaching

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I taught a two day course on woodcarving at Cabrillo College. I might have another class for the Fall extension courses. (More news on that as it happens!) One student who attended my class wanted to learn more and is now attending one-on-one classes here at my studio. My younger student, who has now been coming for a year, has progressed nicely learning different styles of carving. His latest projects are a mallet carved relief of a green man, and making a musical instrument. The green man is around 80% done, and the instrument is in the beginning stages.

 

Restoration Work

On my other workbench is a lovely 1901 Franz Schwarzer zither that I’m about to finish restoring. It had several cracks in the top and back that were caused by dry conditions that shrunk the wood. I’ve stabilized them and repaired other broken areas, like on the pin bridge. This is a beautiful instrument made in Washington, Missouri, around 1900.

If you have a stringed instrument that has been in your family, or one you purchased for your collection and needs some TLC to get it playable again, or to display, be sure to contact me at ron@roncookstudios.com.

 

That’s about it for now. To see more of my work, check out my web site at www.roncookstudios.com or my Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/shop/roncook.

Onward!

Who Knows Where the Time Goes…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over three months since my last blog. Time goes fast when you’re… quite busy. So, here at the end of the first quarter of 2013, this is what’s been going on:

News

The most recent big and exciting event was that I taught a two day course on the fundamentals of wood carving at Cabrillo College during the Cabrillo Extension Spring Arts sessions.

I’ve been teaching one-on-one for over a year now at my studio, but this was my first time teaching a group in a classroom. I prepared by writing a couple of presentations and cutting several types of woods for carving. I was nervous, not about teaching, but if anyone would actually sign up for the class and if I could make the class worthwhile for them. The class filled, and there was even a wait-list. Anyway, after weeks of preparation, the time came and I had a great time, and so did my students!

Back in December, several weeks before Christmas, the Baulines Craft Guild, of which I’m a member, was able to open a “pop-up” gallery at the Corte Madera Town Center, in Marin County, north of San Francisco, for their 40th anniversary show. It was to last until January 2nd, but the Town Center enjoyed having us there and asked if we’d like to stay another month. Of course we said yes, and were able to extend our exhibit. I spent several days “booth sitting” and had a great time talking to customers—and other Baulines members.

Less than a month after exhibiting in Corte Madera, the Baulines Craft Guild displayed in a large booth space close to the entrance of the Contemporary Crafts Market, which was in the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason, San Francisco. I’ve done this with the Baulines for several years, and this turned out to be one of the most successful for several of us exhibiting. Below is a photo of my section of the booth, and the other is a photo of some of my happy customers.

 

  

Repairs and Restorations

This is where I’ve really been busy. For over a year now my restoration and repair services have been going gung-ho. Even though it’s slowed down my own instrument and furniture carving and building, the chance to make antique instruments play again and furniture useful again is incredibly rewarding. It’s a “feel-good” job, and I gotta do it!

Last year it was mostly antique zithers on my workbench. So far this year, it’s been not only zithers, but a mandolin and two chairs. The mandolin, made around 1890, is a lute-style instrument, often called a Neopolitan mandolin. This one was made in Napoli, and the label reads Fabricante di Instrumenti Armonici, Napoli, Anno 1890. Its owners called this their “exploding mandolin” because they heard it “pop” when the top cracked one hot day. The crack, running the length of the top from the neck to tail piece, also made the inlayed pickguard come loose, and a piece of the decorative soundhole binding came out when it popped. Not hard to fix, but because of the thin woods, I had to be careful how I handled it on my workbench.

New this year to me is weaving rush seats on old chairs. A couple of years ago I learned how to weave rush for my medieval stools and chairs. An Open Studios customer visited a friend and asked him if he knew of anyone who could weave new seats for her “carriage” chair, which is a shaker-style ladder-back chair (bottom right photo). He directed her to me, and I ended up doing two chairs. The second was a small children’s ladder-back chair (bottom left photo). On the larger one, I wove the seat with natural rush (made from cattails). On the children’s one I used smaller-diameter fiber rush, which is a paper product, but very strong. When done, I finished the natural rush with boiled linseed oil and the fiber rush with amber shellac. These finishes help strengthen the rush and help them last much longer than uncoated rush. If you have any rush bottom seats that you need recovered, please contact me.

 

 

Of course, zithers abound. I seem to get inquiries about old zithers more and more all the time, and several more customers recently decided to have me restore their instruments. Last year was mainly concert (fretted) zithers. So far this year, it’s chord and plucked zithers.

One I just completed and shipped last week was a lovely Menzenhauer and Schmidt “guitar” zither. Many of this style of American-made zithers were called Guitar zithers, which is a misnomer because they are not fretted like a guitar (or concert zither). A lot of these instruments were sold by door-to-door salesmen who could demonstrate how easy they were to play. However, most were sold through Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs from the late 1800s through the 1920s. A few still remained in their catalogs into the 1960s.

Two instruments recently came to me from Pennsylvania: a small 17-string psaltery-style plucked zither and a much larger “Columbia” zither, model 3 1/2. Both were made by the Phonoharp Company. Phonoharp started in Berwick and Portland, Maine, around 1892. By 1897 they had moved to a larger manufacturing facility in Boston. Of the two zithers, the smaller one, called a Harp Celest (bottom left photo), is probably the older and made in Maine. The Model 3 1/2 Columbia Special (bottom right photo) was made later, 1897-1900, in Boston.

The Harp Celest needs the most work. The top and back are both cracked and several glue joints are failing. I already took the back off to repair the frame and cracks and noticed it had been in water or stored in a damp area. Water stains were evident inside at the tail end. The large crack under the soundhole is from shrinking by getting damp and then quickly drying out. The larger Columbia zither has one back crack, and glue joints at the tail piece are a little loose. The top is in good shape, but the finish is crackled in what is often called alligator skin. I’ve taken care of most of the crackle by rubbing it with denatured alcohol, which reactivated the shellac-type varnish so it spread out filling the crackle voids.

Etsy

My Etsy shop continues to grow. The most popular items have been the dulcimer noters. I’ve sold several and decided I’d better stock up a little and recently made five more. Other new items I’ve added to my shop is the Purpleheart Ukulele, and two rebecs (Quasimodo and The Golem),

To see more of my work, check out my Etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/roncook.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’ve been kept busy with teaching and restorations, and I’m still working on a couple of new pieces, such as another medieval-style three-legged chair and a hurdy gurdy. For our home, I’m getting ready to build another bookcase and another bedside stand. So, I should stop right here and get back to making sawdust.

Onward…