Weissenborn by Patrick DeGreve

[Patrick DeGreve]

I am glad to see that this challenge is now open. I am looking forward to see what everyone is doing. I am going to build a weissenborn. I have never played a slide before, but a friend at work has been asking me to make one for him for awile. This will certainly be "Something New" for me. I bought the weissenborn plans from our plans page, and I bought two weissenborn bearclaw tops from Alaska Specialty Woods last week. I have a lot to learn about the weissenborn, I understand there are several different string sets, for different tunnings, different slides, etc. This is going to be FUN!

[Peter Wilcox]

Patrick - that sounds like a great project. Please post build pics, details and difficulties as you go along. Maybe I'll get the courage to try one some day. I play dobro (poorly) and would like to play a Weissenborn some day.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I can now start my weissenborn project. We finished the Survivor Final, and the American Idol Final last week, and The Dancing with the Stars Final. I finished my younger brother's Vihuela de mano last week and delivered an 8 string baritone, and a jumbo to my older brother in Vegas.
I have been watching the other builds, and as always see some very interesting projects. My weissenborn is new to me, but not as interesting, or as "new" as what I am seeing from the other builds. I am still looking forward to this project. I have a co-worker at CBS who has been asking me to build him a weissenborn for a couple of years, so here it goes.
Here is a picture of my materials. I am using the weissenborn plans from our MIMF plan list. I purchassed a weissenborn sitka top from Alaska Specialty Woods, and a Weissenborn back and side set from RC Tonewoods.

[Patrick DeGreve]

The first step was to build the bending, and building forms.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I bent the sides on my Fox style bender. I had to clamp down the back curve at the neck to make it work, but it came out fine.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I just got back from a 12 day mini vacation in Maine (it was great), and can resume work on the weissenborn. I had done a bit of work before I left, that I did not post yet, so I will start buy posting those. On this project I pre-bent linings as opposed to cutting kerfing. I have been doing this recently and like doing it this way. I used some mahogany I had left over from an earlier project. I ripped them to 1/8 in. X 3/4 in., and bent them the same way I bent the sides in the Fox bender.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Then I glued them in place keeping the sides in the form. I used two layers of lining to build them out to 1/4 in. This gives me a nice bit of wood to glue on the top and back.

[Patrick DeGreve]

After gluing the two soundboard panels together I routed the recess for the rosette purfing, and rosette. I glued in the purfing, and cut and glued in the pieces for the rosette. I then sanded and scrapped the rosette flush with the top.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I used sitka spruce for the braces that I bought from Alaska Specialty Woods. The plans did not show using a radius on the soundboard, but I decided to use a 15 ft. radius. After the glue dried I shaped the braces and glued the soundboard on the sides.

[Patrick DeGreve]

Here is where I stand so far. I am not sure I will finish on time, but I am having a good time with this project. I have been viewing youtube videos of David Lindley, and others to keep me inspired.

[Patrick DeGreve]

I finally finished the weissenborn !! I had to let this go for a long time, I have been so busy these last 6 months, I just couldn't work on it. I took two trips to Maine, we went to Gettysburg, My son got married, and we had several new shows at CBS that kept me going 24/7. It was a very fun project. As always I am glad I joined the Challenge. I took it to work last week and everyone loved it. I ended up giving it to one of my employees, who just couldn't stop playing with it. I may have to build another one.