Singing Potatoes
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Sunday, 31 August 2003
Well, crap.

I brought one of my lutes to Crown because Mistress Elfwyn wanted to see what a real lute felt and sounded like. So after the interminable meetings, I brought the lute into the feast hall, opened up the case... and noticed that there was a string curled about the pegbox. Oh well, I'm used to strings breaking; that's why I keep a full set of replacements in the case. So I looked at the fretboard to see which string it was.

There were no strings on the fretboard.

Due to the heat, or the humidity, or the stupid bumpy dirt road which leads to the event site, or possibly a combination of the three, the glue holding the bridge to the soundboard had decided to give up the ghost.

This isn't the first time my bridge has come off. The first time it happened, I gave it to a luthier (kind of a misnomer these days, since most of them have never even seen a lute, but I digress). It took me six months to get it back from him, but he swore the problem would never recur. Obviously, his faith in his abilities wasn't entirely justified. Time to start researching wood glues, I guess.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
You might want to look into "Gorilla glue". I don't know all the details about it, but after looking at it in Home Depot, it looks pretty strong and dependable, as long as it's clamped properly. I bought an reasonable equivalent, Bull glue, or something like that, and used it to glue the padding into my helmet. It was closed-cell foam glued to duct-taped steel. There was also no possible way to clamp it, besides hold it there. It didn't work perfectly, but as well as can be expected, so with the proper equipment, and like materials, it might be worth looking into. You might also want to ask the luthier at the new guitar store.
Posted by Lunchbox on 2 Sep 2003 07:22
contact our kingdom instrument maker, Leopold, he's REALLY good, I bet he'll help you over email - tell him griz sent you. he makes and plays lutes as well as many others.

music@jubilatores.com
Posted by jen on 2 Sep 2003 16:47