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Indian Tamboura - Repair and Restoration
Indian Saraswati Veena - Repair and Restoration
9 years to heal! It looks to have been made in the 1960s. It came from Woodstock NY! It was poorly constructed - the neck was held on with a few dowels the dragon was roughly carved - the bridge was missing - the wax was cracked in many places - and much more! It has been recreated - the wax fret rails are made from rosewood - the top was re-carved (graduated) and a spruce brace was added for tone. The neck joint was totally rebuilt - one bite to say the least - had to fit a block in the complex curve of the neck joint and rebuild the neck itself to fit in. The dragon was re-carved, stained burgundy, and sprayed with lacquer and gold leafed. The entire instrument was stripped and refinished - stained with burgundy NGR stain and sprayed with nitro lacquer. The paper mache' upper resonator was reshaped - lots of Bondo and turned on a lathe! The bridges are made out of rosewood and brass and pickups were installed in them with a 1/4" jack in the end near the tailpiece. Made two rosewood tailpieces with German cello and violin fine tuners - beats those balls sliding on the wire!!!! All the binding was scraped and cleaned. The frets leveled and polished - made a bone and rosewood nut - set the intonation - made new missing binding on the neck. 9 years!
Hiran Roy Sitar - Repair and Restoration
This is a Strad of sitars. Owner found in a antique shop in a dark corner. Made in the 50 or 60s. Complete mess - upper tumba badly cracked and poorly glued with rubber cement!!! Had to scrape the glue out of the cracks. Frets falling off and some tied with wire. String eyelets in neck cracked. Binding loose. Finish on main gourd peeling off, nuts noose. Tailpiece loose. Leaves delamenating from gourd. And much more. Was a major job - took 6 months +. Refinished with ultra thin nitro lacquer and used blending stains for the color. Glued in many, many, many spruce cleats to support the upper tumba cracks with epoxy. Fit pegs, tied on frets with thread from India to match origional, re-carved nut and bridges, Complete setup, tuned frets, set jawari, new German strings. Rebuilt shipping case and shipped back to its happy dad in Utah. It was only $500 for the shipping!
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