Forum Activity for @hobbyhorse

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
05/19/20 09:13:02PM
10 posts

Tips what do you bring when traveling with your dulcimer?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Jill, thanks for the information. The Valiant looks like a powerful sailing boat and the Ranger Tug would be wonderful for inshore cruising ..... enjoy.

 

We left New Zealand in our double ended 36 foot Lidgard sloop in 1976 for what was supposed to be a 3 year trip and finally made it back to NZ in 1996. We did of course have to work whilst we were away and ended up running charter  boats in the Mediterranean and in the Caribbean and I earned my Masters Certificate and spent time running freighters and tugs ... all good. Our two children became tired of waiting for us to get home and abandoned my wife and I about half way through the trip .... no loyalty!!

Enjoy your time away.

 

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
05/17/20 12:44:02AM
10 posts

Tips what do you bring when traveling with your dulcimer?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

Jill, tell us a little about the boat ..... we lived on ours for 20 years whilst doing a very slow circumnavigation.

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
05/02/20 06:33:10PM
10 posts

What's your favorite tune or dulcimer to play this month?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

That is impressive. A couple of years ago I did build a hurdy gurdy and I think I enjoyed the challenge of building of it more than anything else.

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
05/02/20 04:46:06PM
10 posts

What's your favorite tune or dulcimer to play this month?


General mountain dulcimer or music discussions

The wheel fiddle looks really nice Dan .... was it built to a specific plan?

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
02/14/20 03:01:43PM
10 posts

Epinette


Adventures with 'other' instruments...


Thanks for the comments Ken and Wally.

The plans were drawn by by a Professor Claude Blandet in 1981 and I suspect it was designed as a building project for school children, but certainly it came from the Vosges area of France. The drawing as such is readable but many of the dimensions are too small to be readable and enlarging the drawing actually made it worse .... I also struggled with the French language and words that were too blurred to read. The heading on the drawing reads  Epinette Des Vosges.


updated by @hobbyhorse: 02/14/20 03:03:57PM
Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
02/14/20 01:41:19AM
10 posts

Epinette


Adventures with 'other' instruments...


Herewith an Epinette built from a rather poor quality plan dating from 1981 and as a result, there was a fair amount of guesswork involved. It is built from recycled Kauri and finished in oil and wax. Tuning at the moment is  gggec and I am agreeably surprised at the volume and tonal quality of the instrument.

 

I saw the youtube clip of one built by Michael J King and was attracted to it and I am now awaiting the plan from him, but this will take several weeks to arrive and I built this as practice run. I have since  found that the plan from Michael is in fact the one built for Strumelia ... it is a small world.


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Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
02/02/20 01:53:44PM
10 posts

Show Us Your Pets!


OFF TOPIC discussions

Anne, it is so good to hear positive story coming out of the Australian fires. The best of luck with your new friend.

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
12/21/19 12:31:13PM
10 posts

Rebec


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Thanks for that Dusty.

Strumelia, the black lyre in the picture a few posts back is the Nordic Lyre and on looking at it it does have similarities to a crwth .... attached is a picture of the crwth.


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Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
12/20/19 11:10:24PM
10 posts

Rebec


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Thanks all for your comments.

I used the Rutger uni plans and did enlarge them a little to accommodate the alto tuning that I settled on. The nylgut strings are ok for the d and a but do not have enough tension on the G to get a clear note, however overall it did make the sounds I was hoping for. Ultimately I will have to get a gut set for it.

Irene the plans for the hurdy gurdy came from Graeme McCormack of Tasmania who runs a web site called Antiquated Strings. They were free, which was nice but there were some inconsistencies in the dimensioning which kept me on my toes. I am a builder of instruments ( I am a retired joiner who now has time) rather than a player but I can feel my way around the ones I have built .... I do not pretend to be proficient. The hurdy gurdy did take me 6 months to build. The rebec was just completed today and is still something of a mystery .... given a little more time and I will probably have a better understanding of the fingerboard.

Strumelia, yes the Crwth is bowed but it traditionally has a flat bridge on it which makes for some mournful sounds at times. There are 4 strings over the fingerboard and two that run free and are played as in a lyre. My hands are not really as flexible as they need to be for this one. The Rebec scale length 13 1/8 and the overall is 22 inches. I do have some timber put aside for a tenor rebec next year.

Ken, the Nordic Lyre is also one of Michael Kings, as also was the Crwth. I found him to be a very good communicator who seemed interested in what I was doing, which I thought was a bit special.

Çhristmas wishes to all of you.

Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
12/20/19 08:33:43PM
10 posts

Rebec


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Herewith my Rebec. 

The body is from 10,000 year old New Zealand swamp kauri, the soudboard is recycled kauri and probably 100 years old and the finger board is from matai, again a New Zealand timber. The rebec is finished with lacquer and the finger board is oiled. I have used nylgut strings on it at this stage as this is what I have in my workshop and I really wanted to hear what it sounds like. It is  strung  as an alto: G d a


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Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
11/18/19 05:01:09PM
10 posts

Rebec


Adventures with 'other' instruments...

Strumelia, this is something of thread dredge.

I guess I should apologise for not being active on the site but I have been having just too much fun in the workshop. I have now completed two mountain dulcimers a hurdy gurdy, a crwth, a nordic lyre, two bowed psalteries plus several ukuleles and flutes and am now turning my attention to a rebec, which is how I stumbled across this thread.

I have the plans from Rutgers University and am mulling over whether to build the soprano or the tenor rebec and having built two tenor ukes I do prefer the more mellow tones. Are you still playing your rebec and with your experience do you have a preference for either the soprano or tenor models? The Rutgers one is a soprano and I would have to scale up the plans to get the extra scale length required but this is no real problem.

Rhys


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Hobbyhorse
@hobbyhorse
07/10/18 02:30:03AM
10 posts

Show Us Your Pets!


OFF TOPIC discussions

Jack and Pippi at speed on the sand dunes. Jack, the spaniel X a rehomed pooch, and Pippi, the chihuahua a rescued pup.


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updated by @hobbyhorse: 07/10/18 05:22:34PM