I am constantly scouring the internet for new ideas, getting email suggestions from Pinterest every day for watercolors and instruments I might like. About a week ago, I ran across this very interesting picture of a Theorbo:
It is basically a lute with a grafted long neck holding a set of extra-long unfretted bass strings. I was intrigued, so I searched Google for "electric theorbo" and actually turned up this twin-neck one:
And it sounds really good too:
So I decided to build my own version out of aluminum and brass. Theorbos can have between a dozen and twenty or more strings, so I decided on thirteen, because that is my lucky number. There will be 6 short lute strings and seven bass strings.
But first, I wanted to work out the design in a wooden mockup. I cut a long neck out of a 2x4 and roughly shaped it, then glued it to a roughy-shaped plywood body. I cut out the slots for two soap bar neck pickups and drilled the hole for the wire of an under-bridge flat piezo pickup bar. I stained the whole thing black to make it look better, and here I am:
The length of the neck was chosen to fit a couple of double bass strings. I ordered two sets of extra-long electric bass strings, one light, and one medium. They will require a bracket to attach them to the neck.
All the tuners will be on the body end, some piano pins, and the rest dulcimer pins. The dulcimer pins could be fitted with knurled knobs.
The fingerboard on the lute is flush with the top of the body, but since my pickup sticks up about 1/4", I will have to add a 1/4" fingerboard. The frets on the lute are normally tied gut and there ae usually only 9 or so. In this version, I will use a brass wire wrapped around the fingerboard as I did for the extra-long bass.
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