And then there were blueprints

I just got my plans enlarged and so I now have blueprints for the gurdy!

It Begins

Not the building, that has not stated yet and won't for a while yet.

What has started is the gathering of materials and close reading of my plans and supplemental plans.

So far I have ordered a wide variety of parts of various importance levels. I am not just ordering materials for my gurdy at this point but also I am getting tools for my shop. I will not be completely outfitting my shop because I am going to be borrowing some tools from Mike. But I do want some things that will continue to be useful after I finish.

I have ordered:

Phosphor bronze wire (for hinges)
A set of Brad point drill bits
A coping saw
One pound of powdered hide glue
And a 6" digital caliper

Wood selection

Two weeks ago on a Friday I went with Cameron to Young blood lumberyard to start looking at woods.

This is an amazing place. The selection is awesome there is such a wonderful variety of woods available here.

I looked mainly at walnut for the body of my gurdy. Cameron does have a plank of Honduras mahogany that I will likely be using for the sides of the sound box. I will be getting some more mahogany for the rest of the sound box.

I am currently planning on building the key box out of walnut. I think the contrast between the two will make for a nice finished product.

For smaller pieces, the handle, bridges ect. I am thinking of using ebony. The contrast generated from this variety I think will look brilliant.

I have some pictures of the lumberyard below.

Goals

My Ultimate goal for this project is to end up with a working hurdy-gurdy  One that sounds good. One that will be a good instrument to learn on and share the sound of a hurdy-gurdy with others.

I also hope to learn a LOT about instrument building and woodworking in general. 

When I finish this project I would like to be able to confidently approach a woodworking project with the knowledge that I will be able to compete it. 

I hope to gain an intimate working knowledge of the hurdy-gurdy both in building and history of this instrument. 

Even if my finished product is not a perfect specimen of a hurdy-gurdy it will be mine. This is a big part of my goal. Just to finish the project even if it is not perfect. 

Initial Acknowledgements and Partners.

Why would someone with a very small amount of woodworking experience try to build a very complex musical instrument?

That is an excellent question. It is true. I don't have a lot of experience with woodworking. But I have enough experience to general woodworking practices. I also know enough to know that I need help working on this project.

So I will be working with one main mentor and another of my friends who has woodworking experience.

My mentor of sorts is John Michael Smith. He is a professional luthier who works repairing instruments from upright basses to violins. He is immensely skilled and I am very honored to be working with him. You can find his website here.

I will also be working with my friend Cameron Christian, of Gray Goose Bows. He is a skilled Bowyer
and will be another value resource.

There is a third person who I would like to thank, and Kate Williams of Unprofitable Instruments. She is an instrument maker who builds medieval instruments such as rebecs, trumpet marines and citols. I visited her shop in early October and got to play her gurdy! She was also very helpful and helped get me thinking along the right paths.

The hurdy-gurdy she owns is a simple one, with just one chanter, one row of keys and two drone strings. Still a lovely instrument.

My Shop

At first when working thinking about the plan I was unsure about where much of the work would take place.

Soon after I moved into my apartment I realized that there was a shop space in the basement. It was filthy and filled with stuff. I was unsure if it would be a useful space.

It looked at first like this:

After spending an afternoon in the room I got it clean enough to actually be very useful. Now it looks like an actual shop.
It is a clean and good looking space I am quite satisfied with it.

You can view this as a photosphere on my Google plus page here.

You may notice that there are almost no tools on the wall. That is very much something I am aware of. I will be borrowing the more specialized tools that I will be needing and I am going to be getting basic tools that I expect to be useful to me in the future.

Welcome

First of all welcome to this blog. Here I will be recording and sharing the process of building a Hurdy Gurdy from scratch. This is likely going to be a long process and I will be learning a lot. Join me as I work through the the build.

I probably will be running into issues and things will not work as I plan. It will be an adventure.