This is a wooden sleeve that covers the join between the main body and the bell. It also covers the 7th hole which is operated by a brass key.
The starting point is a block of wood with a very shallow taper drilled though it...
Here it is mounted on a mandrel, ready for turning down to a basic cylinder.
The wall thickness of this cylinder is between 6 and 7 mm.
The ends are stepped so that the brass ferrules made previously are a tight push-fit.
The ferrules are sanded down with silicon-carbide paper to remove any tooling scratches and other blemishes left over from the forming process.
before...
...and after.
The ferrules and other brasswork will be fully polished on a buffing machine before final fitment to the shawm.
The next step is to turn the fontanelle down to match the ferrules. This is done with the ferrules fitted in order to get an exact fit. Also, a decorative line has been added using a cheese-wire to scorch the wood. This line will run through the centres of the decorative holes that will pierce the fontanelle.
Returning to the body of the instrument, it has been sanded, positions for the finger holes marked out, and the joint adjusted to match the socket bored into the bell...
...and, for the first time, the body and bell are joined together.
We now have the three main components of the alto shawm:
and here they are fitted together:
Now it's time to drill the decorative holes in the fontanelle. There are 150 holes to drill, and clean-up:
Here is the assembled shawm, now with finger holes drilled. This is starting to look like a viable musical instrument.
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