Hey everyone! I’m planning my first (hopefully of many) shamisen build.
I have build a bunch of instruments in the past (guitars, basses, drums and flutes) and I’d love to get into building shamisen, I’m from Argentina, and you just can’t get shamisen here.
I already bought Kyle’s book should be arriving in a few weeks. Meanwhile I started looking for local materials for the build. Couldn’t find much information about what “karin” “shitan” and “kouki” actually are, or how hard can be (I’ve hear padouk, and rosewood, but there’s a ton of “rosewoods” that are wildly different from each other). I’m leaning on using a local wood called eucaliptus colorado (River Red Gum), it has a beautiful orangy red color and it’s reasonably hard (2,160 lbf - 9,600 N in janka scale) that’s harder than hard maple, and as hard as some of the softer rosewoods. Hard but not hard enough to blunt all my tools.
The other option for the sao could be Pau Ferro, a Brazilian wood that we usually use to replace Indian rosewood or ebony on guitar fretboards.
I’ve noticed that kyle ads a fingerboard of another wood in some of his build, this seems smart to me, it’ll definitely add stiffness to the sao. And has anyone tried to put in truss rods ? either adjustable or a fixed carbon fiber stiffening rod (mora stable and lighter than steel, should affect the tone less)
Other than wood I was wondering what are the synthetic skins made of. I could get goat skin, we use it a lot for drums, but id like to try some synthetic fabrics (maybe nylon waving? or cordura)
On the matter of strings, I’ve seen a lot of people here recommending just to use nylon guitar strings/ fishing line, but I found an interesting set of guitar strings from an Argentinian brand, that are made from nylon, but not a single solid strand, they’re nylon strings wound with more nylon, similar to the bass strings on a guitar, but wound with nylon instead of metal. It reminded me of the braided silk on the shamisen. I’m just hoping they’re long enough.
Lastly, I was wondering what could be the best material to make the bachi. Wood seems like it would be both fragile and no the bet sounding. The acrylic bachi seems like a great design, I’m wondering if celluloid (the material that guitar picks are made of) could be another option to acrylic, plus it has the classic tortoise shell look. 3D printing a bachi in resin (not filament) could also work, I’m not sure how brittle/flexible the uv resin is.
Oh and if someone from Argentina plays, has build, or just has a shamisen I’d love to chat with them. I see only one user from argentina in the forum map.
Any information you guys have would be really helpful
Sorry for the huge post, I’m just really excited to jump into the build!. I’m just really excited to jump into the build!