Hi Guys,
A friend of mine and I have been wanting to get shamisen for a while now.
However, since we live in the Netherlands and no one here sells them, makes them or repairs them I’ve been looking into ways of getting a cheap shamisen off ebay and repairing it as I am an amateur luthier.
So here are a couple of questions that I have that you guys might be able to help me with.
1: I’ve seen plastic shamisen on ebay for little to no money, are these as crappy as I think they are or does anyone here have decent experiences with them?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japan-Vintage-SHAMISEN-Set-Classic-Stringed-Instrument-CYUZAO-w-Cloth-Case-5320-/263038617098?hash=item3d3e52c60a:g:wZwAAOSwN2VZQhHI
2: I;ve been thinking, instead of making the tooling for reskinning a shamisen and learning to do it for 10 years before getting a decent result (im exaggerating ofc). Would it be possible to buy say a banjo skin or a drum skin, pre stretch it, glue it to the Do while it’s under tension and have it hold it’s tension if the glue is strong enough?
3: Has anyone here had the chance to 3D print a shamisen? I have access to professional 3D printers and I don’t think that it would be too much of a stretch to make one out of ABS.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers