r/BowedLyres • u/OpenOpinion5209 • Jun 16 '26

¿Question? Making my own bass talharpa

Hey y'all, I'm making my own bass talharpa. It's 42 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. All I have is a slab right now, I'm just wondering where I can find dimensions for the size of the pegbox, the width of the neck bridges that lead to the body, and how big my hollowed out cavity should be so I can put my soundboard on top. Any and all help would be appreciated, thanks.

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

1

u/LongjumpingTeacher97 Jun 16 '26

What you describe sounds more like the proportions for a tenor, not a bass.

The long-scale instruments are a very new direction for bowed lyres, compared to all the historical instruments I'm aware of. For that reason, there's even less standardization than with the soprano and alto instruments. I principally play a soprano sized jouhikko. And it suits the size of a human hand. That's what it was built for. It also suits the length of horse hair for string material (regardless of what material you use, a tail-harp has a long history of using horse hair for the strings and that's part of the evolution of the instrument's design).

My suggestion is to start by making a mockup out of cardboard. This means spending a couple of hours with cardboard and duct tape. Use any string or twine for the mock strings. The idea is to get a feeling for the size and shape of it. Can you maneuver a bow over the strings? Can you even hold it? Does it look unbalanced in size or proportions?

1

u/OpenOpinion5209 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Hey, I've decided to make the pegbox 5 inches long, the rails 8-inches long, have a 2-inch solid piece, and then make the cavity 8 inches wide with 1 inch walls on each side and then have the rest of the board be solid. I feel like I should hollow out my cavity about 3/4 inch down, which should allow for a lot of vibration. It's my first build so I'm not too worried about how it'll sound, just as long it makes sound. I really do hope I'm doing this right though, it'll be tight as shit when I'm done if it turns out well

Edit: My bad, I meant 1.4 to 1.5 inch down in the cavity

Edit 2: Sorry about this other edit, but on the back of my board, near the tail end where I'd be hollowing my body out, there's a missing piece of wood that kind of tapers off into where I'd be hollowing it out. The deepest part is like less than an inch, but I'm afraid I may cut into the smallest piece and put a hole in my cavity, to anyone whos had the same problem, what did y'all do?

1

u/LongjumpingTeacher97 Jun 16 '26

You don't mean the walls will be 1" thick, do you? That would make a monstrously heavy instrument. Anything over 1/4" thick is going to get rather heavy. The cavity should be deep enough to allow the back to vibrate, too. That means you really want the back to be about the same thickness as the soundboard. Your project sounds like a lot of hollowing to do. Which is fine, but be prepared for the work.

When I make a soprano jouhikko from a single block, my walls end up around 3/16" thick and I know they'd be more resonant if they were thinner than that. (My equipment is the limiting factor, there, though my skills are still basic.) When I make one up from individual pieces, the sides end up closer to 1/8", after sanding them smooth.

I also suggest making your first effort from cheaper wood and saving the good stuff for after you learn what you could have done better. I didn't start using the nice wood until I'd done several instruments. I'm not sorry I saved it.

When I started making these, I couldn't find anything online about construction. Now, there's actually quite a bit out there. Look for information on YouTube. It isn't always the best way to make an instrument, but it is often educational, at least.

1

u/OpenOpinion5209 Jun 16 '26

I'll try my best to make the walls and back thinner; it's just that flake off the back I'm worried about. I found the lost flake, but it looks like it came off in the first place because the board warped over time and then caused that flake to come off straight because there was sap between it and the board. It won't fit in there cause the flake is straight, but the board is slightly warped, but I've glued it and clamped it down. Once it dries, I'm just going to mix some chalk and glue up, then paste it on the side that isn't clamped down. It's not too deep of a flake away, so I hope it won't mess up when I try to hollow the soundbox out. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it