Making a Bachi at work

Building/Repair
#1

Hi Guys !

I felt like sharing my day with you, i finished my guitar tusday and being busy all wednesday doing absolutely nothing so, today i thought i should do something, i had a little bit of wood left and some screws and stuff, so i made a little template !

The idea was to be able to work with shamisen stuff the same way i do with my guitar works, but few pictures will talk more .

i started by taking every measurement and then redraw on my piece of plywood the half form of the bachi with a french curve.
Then i rough cut the wood, and i work the rest with the rasp and some sanding .

here is the rough cut :

then i made a slot in the middle of a 10mm piece of plywood, so i can flip over the half form and have the same perferct bachi shape on each side .

and then rough cut again both sides (greatest picture focus ever)

here is the fun part, i love doing this , i just have to copy with the router bit the half side of the bachi on the actual template

Et voilà :

It may look really big but the actual bachi size is in the middle of the shape , now i just have to put some clamping stuff and go on.

And here are the clamps, work awesomely good for everything i have done with the guitars, but here … i must have done this so quick that i totally failed it !

I made a 24mm thick plywood “test” bachi , put it in the template, and unfortunately when i was copying it with the router, it was sliding in the template, i’ll have to re do the clamping, but i had to leave work because of the end of the day, and the end of the world, and also because it’s holiday !

the last picture is the bachi before the router massacre, i had a side done well , the other side begged me to kill it, so i left work and now here i am !

I will try to finish the templates and one bachi after holidays but nothing is sure, i have to more week at work in january and then i leave to my own workshop !

Anyway , i just wanted to share this with you, hope you like my awesome skill at taking awesome pictures :wink: !

#2

Cool! You wanna show the guitar as well? :slight_smile:

#3

well i don’t have any good pictures of it yet but here it is :

I still have to fix the bridge pins :smiley:

#4

Oh, very nice guitar!

#5

Yes indeed, looks really sweet. The darker color makes it look pretty unique too.

I actually picked up my western guitar yesterday for the first time in many months, and I had recently strung it when I played it last time so the strings were not that bad. I had almost forgotten how beautiful it is when you can hear the sound like 30 seconds after you’ve plucked a string.

#6

Haha yes sustain is quite a thing you can’t found very much on a Shamisen unfortunately, it’s nice sometimes to pluck a big chord and enjoy the sound!

The guitar is all mahogany, neck back and sides, and the top is red cedar, i was not enthousiatic about this, but in the end the guitar sounds really great!

As i was talking about shamisen with my boss, he said i should try someday to build one the way we build guitars, with thin sides, wooden back and top, i must admit that i’m curious about how it would sound.

#7

Hey Guys, little news, i finish my test bachi today :

http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/741285_312860975498753_2030076580_o.jpg

I will explain the process this weekend with even crapiest pictures :smiley:

The next step is to make a bachi with the piece of Elm Wood that a friend gave me at the shop, the bad news is that it was a sick tree and it’s full of holes, the good news is that i have plenty of dust and super glue :smiley: !

#8

Looks cool!

Don’t put glue on the blade. One strike and then there was no skin left :slight_smile:

#9

ho really? because the glue was not sanded or because the blade was too stiff ? If i can avoid that king of accident that would be great :confused: ! Althought i still don’t have a shamisen !

#10

I’m just kidding, as long as the surface is smooth it shouldn’t be a problem.

#11

phew, you got me :smiley: ! I’ll probably have the pictures of the elm wood bachi this afternoon, if every holes if filled, otherwise it’ll be finished tommorow !

#12

So i’ve spent the afternoon working on the elm wood bachi … it didn’t turn out as good as i thought, the wood is really in bad shape, it was very sick and destroyed by worms, so i had many more holes to fill… fortunately this is just a piece to try and get skill , and the sanding is really messy and hard to do, it’s not a fun wood to work with !

the original piece of wood :

squaring the piece before cutting everything in to shape

First holes appears and got filled

Then i’m starting thicknessing with a router press thingy stuff :smiley: (don’t know how to call this tool in english)

and the first side is done, i do the blade after

On the plywood version i traced the template lines, then sawed the outlines and finished the bachi by sanding it down, but with this wood, i almost killed the bandsaw , so i decided to make it with a router bit, easier, but longer to do .

Routing the other side :

this side was a mess

So i had to fill everything with dust and glue,

Yummy :smiley:

When it was sanded, i work on the blade :

I’ve finished the blade but had no pictures yet, the bachi is a real mess right now, there are holes everywhere , and i have to finish the sanding by hand, it’s horrible as hell to do, the wood is really hard to work, but i’ll try to make something out of it! Next time i’ll try another piece of healthy wood, but i will make the blade out of cellulose .

#13

ho , pictures failed … i’m uploading everything on imgur !

#14

Really cool with pictures. Takes me back to school woodworking, which I regret I didn’t put more effort into.

I’ve only made my doukake and tenjin cap by myself. There were several moments where I was asking myself why I spent all this time, and still some money for the materials, when I can just go and buy something.

I can imagine the thought has crossed your mind too, but it’s great to see the passion into learning how to make it properly!

#15

It’s never too late :slight_smile: ! Ha the doukake and tenjin cap are the most scary thing for me to do, i guess it’s really hard to do !

Well of course, but what is the point ? :smiley: i love woodworking and wanted to experiment so it was either spent money on a bachi or trying to learn how to make one, it’ll be the same with the shamisen when i will have the time, i could just by one, but making mistakes and solving problems to finally play on a thing i’ve made is much more fun :slight_smile: !

© 2020 Kyle Abbott