Tag: lutherie
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Why Wittner Fine-Tune Planetary Pegs are a Good Idea
Please visit the Don Rickert Musician Shop. Many people have cold feet about installing internally-geared tuning pegs on their violins or fiddles. We think that it has to do with the fact that most of us envision a planetary-geared violin peg as heavy and "fake" looking. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are…
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NEW YouTube Videos by Don Rickert Design (and Don Rickert Lutherie)
First, you might have noted that we are starting to use the name Don Rickert Design rather than Don Rickert Lutherie. The reason for this is that we are branching out from just designing and making stringed instruments. Lutherie only refers to the design, making, setup and repair of STRINGED instruments. We are also in…
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Kira and Her Adventurer IId Travel Violin Save the Day at the Abbey in Conques
Before Our Story, A Little Bit About the 1,000 Year-Old Sainte-Foy Abbey Church The Sainte-Foy Abbey (of the Benedictine Order) Church in Conques, France (the Southern part of France) was a popular stop for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela, in what is now Spain. Its construction began sometime in the 1020s and…
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The Violin Tail Gut: What Goes Around Comes Around (Part 3)
Introduction We ended Part 2 of this article with commentary of the difficulty of installing a Kevlar tail cord. This final part delves into how its done and touches on the matter of whether or not it is worth the trouble. Removing the Tailpiece First, "tie-off" the strings so that they do not unravel on the pegs…
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A Regular Fiddle with the Innovative Tailpiece-Chin Rest Combo
Introduction As part of Don Rickert Lutherie's search for the perfect chin rest for our backpacker fiddles and travel fiddles, particularly our 2-inch wide Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle, we found a unique accessory from the innovative Dov Schmidt, which combines the function of the tailpiece AND the chin rest. To our amazement, this Tailpiece-Chinrest Combo works extremely…
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A Chin Rest for Fiddlers Who Do Not Use Chin Rests
In our very recent article, The Solution to the Chin Rest Problem on Backpacker Violins and Fiddles, I described Don Rickert Lutherie's quest for the solution to the chin rest problem with our backpacker and travel violins and fiddles. See that article for the details. The bottom line is that we have found a tailpiece-chin…
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The Solution to the Chin Rest Problem on Backpacker Violins and Fiddles
Our continuous improvement efforts related to the Backpacker and Travel Fiddles by Don Rickert Lutherie (the Neil Gow 21C2 Travel Violin, the NEW Neil Gow 22C Travel Violin, Adventurer IId Travel Violin and Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle) has kept us on a relentless search for a truly usable chin rest solution. Customers who otherwise love these small, durable and sonorous instruments have…
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The Use of Tuned Porting in Modern Stringed Instruments
Tuned porting has been a crical aspect of audio system speaker enclosure design for many years. Only recently, has the idea of porting beyond what is provided by the sound holes, been considered in the design of musical instruments, paricularly stringed instruments, plucked as well as bowed. With stringed musical instruments, porting refers to strategically placing extra…
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