Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey guys.

I have a Ukranian friend with a Russian bass domra that was at some point "converted" to a guitar neck and glued on pin bridge. (The original was a 4-string Ukranian Domra with a tailpiece and floating bridge.

Well... It had steel strings.. The neck had no reinforcent (Probably off a miscellaneous gut strung Soviet guitar) and warped like mad.... Then the bridge pulled off.... And it's a wreck... But he plays traditional Ukranian music at all sorts of festivals and it would be cool to bring it back to life.

Don't have any pix now - he says he will bring it over to me.... To see if I can sort it back out for him...

Anybody here have any experience with these? What lives inside? How was the neck usually attached? Bracing?

If this ever comes to fruition - I will post some pix.

Thanks

103 page views and nobody knows anything about them?

Can I play Purple Haze on one?

Sorry couldn't resist.

Bump.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

I don't know anything about them myself, but maybe this video on YouTube will give you some idea of what is going on under the hood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqjLKySXPjM

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George :-)

I have watched that video 3 times now.. I think it's the only one on the entire internet.... I can't believe there is no one in the entire USA doing these.... Building Russian folk instruments appears to be an even more obscure and esoteric hobby than building your own acoustic guitars...

Still no Domra from my buddy...

A domra is what you play if you can't handle bandura

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I don/t speak russian or ukranian . There are a number of youtube videos showing how they are made by russian luthiers and musicians.

I had one a few weeks ago. Was the most crudely built instrument I've ever seen. I don't know how you would find out what's on the inside. The one I worked on had a sound hole I could barely get a finger in, let alone a mirror. I had to ream a hole for a string pin and had to suck the chips out with a straw on the vac hose. The player tuned it like a Mando.
Maybe, with our new El prezidente, these will catch on and be the new Ukulele. Talk about a niche! How about a Chump (woops!) Trump inlay on the fingerboard?

Interesting.

My buddy told me that there were several grades of instruments coming out of the giant soviet factories back in Ye Olde Communist Days... They ranged from "Didn't even make good firewood because they burned too quickly" to "barely passable as a student instrument".... These were generally incredibly horrible and crudely made....

There were other instruments - old ones, imported foreign ones, and instruments made by a very limited number of master craftsmen... These were too expensive for "normal" people... The ones made by master craftsmen could only be bought with special permits if you were a properly qualified member of an official orchestra... Waiting lists were over 10 years long... One of the reasons was that these master luthiers would get thrown in jail periodically because they weren't official musical instrument factory workers... Then - the orchestra performers and conductors would have to beg the officials to let the fellow out of jail so he could fix their instruments so they could have a concert... Crazy!

And to make matters worse - the "official procedure" for a damaged instrument was to send it to one of the factories for proper repair. These were generally just burned and replaced with unplayable trash....

But... He claims the good ones made by a master are really good...

Interesting story John.
I spent some of my youth behind the "iron curtain" in the 80's. Your stories fit with my experience. The Domra I had on my bench definitely looked like it was built to tick some numbers box for a bureaucracy that had long ago stopped caring about what they put out.

As a teenager during the cold war period, I headed off to the soviet block expecting to see the big adversary we had been warned about. Some sort of equivalent counterpart to the U.S.A. It was totally stunning. Like climbing into a time machine. They proudly showed off their factories. Dirt floors and horrific conditions, donkeys pulling carts of coal along the streets to heat with. The first sign was climbing onto the Aeroflot airplane and seeing all the tires on the plane were fuzzy!
There was so little rubber left, the cords were just flapping like an old tennis ball. Only the cyclists on the soviet national team had handlebar tape. The others just gripped the aluminum. We brought luggage stuffed with old used bike parts that served as bribes at border crossings. And the food in the spring, after a long winter, Brutal! Racing for days on end while subsisting on last years veggies suspended in aspic. Coca-cola or salt brine water to wash it down.................I digress

We'll pull this out the next time one of those "repair shop horror stories" threads crops up.

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George :-)

You should hear his stories about buying and owning Russian cars... They are hilarious and horrible at the same time....

That's incredible. My buddy talked about foreign musicians selling off their instruments at the end of the Russian legs of their tour and making more on the instruments than their concert royalties.... There was just such a massive shortage of any sort of quality instrument.... He commented that due to currency exchange issues - they usually ended up being paid for these instruments in gold, jewelry, or precious stones..

And Vodka.