Project: Kantele

How long did it take to make your Kantele. That is not includeing the glues drying time. Only the time you had your hands on it.

How long did it take to make your Kantele. That is not includeing the glues drying time. Only the time you had your hands on it.

 

Cant be 100% sure, According to the camera I worked from 13:30 to 21:00 on saturday, where I had it up to a couple of strings attached, and on sunday from 8:00 to 11:00 to do the remaining strings and coverpiece for them.

 

ballpark guess would be around 7-8 hours, but some time was spent thinking on how to do some stuff.

 

I think I let the glue dry for 1-2 hours between phases (Halves, the string step, and the cover), which I was rushing I suppose.

A bit of an update with the version 1.5 body.

 

Despite all the best efforts with the first try, I thaught that the body of the instrument ended up a bit too thick, also it was a bit of a faff to make with two hollowed pieces.

 

The end result was to do it more like the actual instrument itself, with a hollowed out bottom, and a flat coverpiece to make the sound chamber.

 

This mean some slightly more tricky router work having to shave off quite a bit of wood to get the desired thickness for the coverpiece:

 

 

Because I was doing it this way I wouldnt need to shave off any more material from the hollowed out bottompiece:

 

 

For some more added control, and again added chances of cutting a finger off I bolted my jigsaw upside down on my little work table for that extra little bit of control ... (personal note to buy a small table top band saw to make this part a bit more easy in the future)

 

 

This was a very iffish way to do it as the piece of wood will gladly start to stick to the sawblade, and start hammering either your fingers or itself apart.

 

For some added detail, I decided to stain and laquer the inside of the chamber.

 

I was not able to find the burnt orange tint thats found on chellos and such, but walked away from the paint store with a can of "Mahogany" stain, which is basicly a dark burgundy.

 

 

For a small cheeky detail, I added a constructors label inside with my would be atelier...

 

 

At this point it was rather weird to discover, that despite being the same brand of tint, the burgundy mahogany one acted a little differently than the dark brown Palisander that I had previously tested.

 

There is a reason for starting the coloring work of the cover already at this stage, and its as Zero pointed out, to get the top of the cover fully ready considering paints before attaching the strings.

 

To add a little contrasting detail, I used the dark brown palisander tint for the trimmings.

 

And the front edge trimmed to near final dimensions:

 

Now all that remained was the clear coat, three-four layers of it with sanding in between to get most of the ridges away:

 

 

 

The reason why I've left the back of the instrument still in its rough form is that I still need to put on the string guard, that also needs to be shaped into form, which would be done best at the same time as the rest of the instrument.

 

The only downside of this approach is, that the edges of the darker colored trim pieces will be a bit of a fiddle to accomplish, but Im saving that headache for later.

 

With the clear on the burgundy tint im pretty happy how its starting to look at the moment, now I only need to figure out a minor detail with the pins for the strings, as the shorter zinc-plated ones I used previously would be ideal lenght, but brass one's that are readily available at the hardware store are a lot longer.

 

Might have to consider borrowing a pillar drill to make straight holes in the body, and cut the nails to desired lenght. But thats something for the next update.

Looking great so far! Can't wait to see more progress!

Welp... this morning was the final phase in this project, wich was waiting for the last coat of laquer to dry.

 

But before we get to the final showcase pictures, time to show how we got there in the first place.

 

As I left the thing, I was on the lookout for suitable pins for the visible string edges. The solution was found in the "slightly more expensive hardware store", where for nearly double the cost of the longer brass nails I would have to cut to lenght, I found a bag of suitable lenght ones.

 

With the suitable pins in stock, it was just a matter of measuring up the spots again, and hammering in the nails:

 

 

And string it, as before:

 

 

I sort of cheaped out a bit, and used only two brass nails for the one's that would go under the cover, since if I botched this one up, Id atleast have more to try again with. (and since their hidden anyways...)

 

Now we get back to the bodybuilding.

 

All that remained was the string cover. Which was done as before, but with a slightly smaller step, since I had fattened up the back this time to keep the nails in better check:

 

 

 

And this is more or less the clearance for the nails:

 

 

Now it was ready for final body forming, and the back end was sanded to shape, now that it was all together:

 

 

Criss-crossing wood grain:

 

Now we are getting to the point where its very easy to botch it all up, which is coloring.

 

As I said before, I wanted the two-tone style, and the first order of business was the mask up the darker stain, which would go to the string guard, and tuning edge:

 

 

Putting on enough coats of the palisander stain to match what was already done, and then after it was dry, sealed with a coat of clearcoat:

 

 

 

Now the fun bit, which was reverse-masking it for the mahogany stain:

 

 

Now its in its raw state:

 

 

Now begins the tedious bit, which is laquer, flattening, more laquer, more sanding, and final coating, and to make things more interesting, and time consuming it had to be done in two main parts, which were the font parts, and the backplate on its own.

 

One of the few stages of mid-flattening:

 

I didnt want to be too impatient, and agressive with the sanding, since there was a chance of going into the stain, which would have been more or less a restart matter.

 

After awhile it was starting to look like it should:

 

 

Now that the thing was actually fully sealed on all edges, I decided to do something a bit more agressive on the backplate, since it was more or less flat, and that was water-sanding.

 

This is actually flatted down layer of clear:

 

The more flat you get the inbetween coats, the better results you will finally get in terms of a near mirror finish.

 

I didint quite manage that this time, but im pretty pleased with the end results:

 

 

 

 

Not quite mirror-like, but still reflects:

 

As you can see, I suffered a bit from the two-phase coloring technique and got some over-run on the tuning edge from where I colored and laquered afterwards, but thats life on occasion I guess..

 

Now then, time to find something else to tinker with...

Why so awesome?

Why so awesome?

 

heh, thanks.

 

I dont want to sound overly modest, but I wouldnt call it just awesome myself, since there are flaws up close and personal:

Over-runs, a few chips on the back I wasnt able to smooth out fully, and a few bristles in the laquer from my brush that started to disintegrate while putting on the final coats of clear, and the strings are a bit wayward (a lot better than on the proto, though).

 

But its still quite fun to think that quite a bit of elbow-grease, and patience made this from a 5$ piece of processed wood.

 

Wow that looks awesome cant wait to see the final result

 

 

Thanks, and I've posted wip, and final shots of the upgrade into the thread, and those can be found on the previous page of the thread.

Why so awesome?

 

heh, thanks.

 

I dont want to sound overly modest, but I wouldnt call it just awesome myself, since there are flaws up close and personal:

Over-runs, a few chips on the back I wasnt able to smooth out fully, and a few bristles in the laquer from my brush that started to disintegrate while putting on the final coats of clear, and the strings are a bit wayward (a lot better than on the proto, though).

 

But its still quite fun to think that quite a bit of elbow-grease, and patience made this from a 5$ piece of processed wood.

 

Wow that looks awesome cant wait to see the final result

 

Thanks, and I've posted wip, and final shots of the upgrade into the thread, and those can be found on the previous page of the thread.

 

Well, it is always easy to find flaws in your own work, but regardless of the flaws, it looks great and I'm sure if you were to work on another iteration, it would be even better. Props to you!