Mark Riess's Page

 Okay, this is turning out all right. I decided to reshape the neck while I was at it:…

When I left yesterday, the cutaway piece was pretty much fitted up and ready to go, so with a few minor adjustments to the kerfing, a trial fit or two, a dry run at clamping, and some finish sanding to the exposed surface, I glued it up and put the clamps on:…

I rounded up an old classical beater, and, while tossing and turning one night, decided to retrofit a cutaway design into it as well as add a home-made piezzo pickup. I happened to have an orphaned pre-bent piece of brazillian rosewood made for a florentine cutaway knocking around my inventory of random guitar woods. I personally prefer the venetian style cutaway, so this was a perfect excuse to use it up in an experimental self tutorial.

Here is the victim, an old "Orlando" I…

Oodles of ouds are coming across the workbench these days. Yesterday I removed the peg head from a neck/head assembly a friend had shipped from Jordan to replace the peghead on an oud he has. The oud maker in Jordan had mistakenly sent a neck assembled to the peghead as well, which my friend did not want. So I fired up the espresso steamer and separated the two. 

After…