I am at West Dean College in Sussex, attending the "Making Musical Instruments" course. On previous visits here, I have made a guitar...
...and a lute...
This year, I am trying my hand at a woodwind instrument, calling for new skills in turning and brass-working. The instrument I intend to make is an alto shawm, something like this:
(This one is made by my course tutor, Eric Moulder)
The starting point for this instrument are some blocks of maple. The centre holes were already bored in these pieces by Eric in his own workshop because West Dean does not have adequate facilities for students to make long bores such as these.
The first job is to ream the bores of the body and bell pieces to the correct internal profile.
Here are the reamers used for this activity:
The first turning job is to make a mandrel. This is an adaptor which is turned so that one end has a morse taper to fit directly into the lathe's head-stock, and the the other end is turned to be an exact fit for the bore reamed into the shawm body. Here is the mandrel as made this morning...
...fitted to the head-stock...
...and here is a the shawm body mounted on it...
The next sequence of pictures show the stages in turning this block of wood into the basic shawm body.
The next step is to start forming the bell. This is a complex shape to turn, and involves many operations. The first part is to remove the corners and flats, and turn a spigot so that it can be mounted in a chuck ready for hollowing out the bell. The recess just behind the wider end is for a steady that will be used when hollowing out the bell.
And finally...
This is the pile of shavings created by one day's turning :-)
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