Making a Cello From the Junk in My Basement Blog - part 1

First an apology and an acknowledgment to Jim McKean, whose Making a Cello Blog on this site was one of the most interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable articles I've ever read. To anyone reading this, if you only have time to read one Cello Making Blog this year, let me recommend that you quickly click over to Jim's.

Much of this blog is going to contain disclaimers. First of all, and perhaps of greatest significance: My woodworking skills are...well...not so good. While a real maker deals in fractions of a millimeter, I'm usually pretty pleased with myself if the board I'm cutting comes within an inch or two of the desired measurement. Perhaps you can sense how that may present some limitations when making a stringed instrument.

Also, my woodworking skills don't really allow me to deal with Round things. For me, wood is something that one cuts in straight(-ish) lines and then connects with screws or nails. I look across the room at my (real) cello, with it gorgeous curves, slopes, and of course its scroll, and recognize that my inability to make wood into something Round may have some implications on this process.

The scope of this project is as follows: Produce a working cello from whatever materials I can find in my basement--scraps of wood, screws and nails, staples, wire, etc. It doesn't have to look like a cello, but it should play like one and maybe even sound like one. It will have four bow-able strings, which will be tuned to C-G-D-A, and can be bowed individually or in multiple stops. Two quick disclaimers: 1) I'm not going to attempt to make a bow. For now I'll just use a regular cello bow. And 2) I'm not going to attempt to make strings either. Does everyone else save their old strings? I never throw them out, unless one breaks. Technically, those old strings aren't "junk in my basement" (I keep them in a drawer in my studio, which is up in the attic), but I'll ask your forbearance on that one.

I take a look around my basement and, at the outset, realize that I have a huge advantage over the Old Masters. Guarneri never had a circular saw or an electric drill. This fact emboldens me as I pull a few choice pieces of single-ply plywood and some 1x2 wood strips out to the backyard to do some precision cutting. My design, which I scribbled on a yellow pad, calls for a box--29-1/2" x 10" x 5", but the slabs of plywood I'm using are only 24" x 24", so I decide to make a two-piece front. This requires me to cut a few extra 5" ribs.

I assemble the box using 1" wood screws, but I leave the sides open for now. At this point I haven't decided how the neck is going to attach, or if I'm going to have a bass bar, or a sound post, or how I'm going to attach the endpin, or how I’m going to attach the strings. With that level of uncertainly, it seems prudent to leave myself easy entry into the guts.

My two boys assist as I put the box together. My younger son, who will soon be four years old hands me screws as I request them. Only his response time gets slower as his interest wanes after each request, until finally he takes out a handful of screws and sets it down next to me. Off he goes to tear apart the largely dilapidated concrete floor of the basement. My older son, who just turned six, keeps verifying that this cello will in fact have a scroll on top. I'm evasive at best. I have no idea, at this point, how to reconcile a scroll with the fact that I don't do Round. I'm banking that he'll be bored enough by the end of the project that he may forget about the scroll.

The boys keep asking "Is it finished? Is it finished?" and they keep banging on the hot water heater. Generally, when the kids start banging on the water heater, it's time to call it quits for the night.

Next time, we'll try to attach a fingerboard and try to figure out how this thing is going to be strung.