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A client contacted me saying "the airline would not allow it to be hand carried but would “handle it with care” ... she figured all was lost... A lovely Radha Krishna Sharma... The result of the "careful handling" by the airline:   The result of the careful handling by me: 
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I'm in Southern California for my annual visit working on sitars (and more). First stop was U.C. Santa Barbara. Had a great time and with the capable help of Professor Scott Marcus made their wonderful collection of sitars sing! Now It's off to L.A. to work on UCLA's instruments and touch back in with my many friends and colleagues in the L.A. area. more pictures of that to come (-:   Here is the 'before' picture of an other-wise lovely sitar tabli I was asked to repair. The tumba at the tail-piece was shattered also. ------------------- There are a few factors that contributed to this damage (other than some gorilla at Delta Airlines drop-kicking it out of the plane). There's nothing wrong with a tabli that's a bit on the thin-side* but in this case it's one of the reasons it shattered the way it did. (*thin or thick is not the whole picture - it's also about wood-density, but that's for another post) The real problem with this instrument was that the tabli/tumba joint was twisted. The tabli was a bit warped and the surface to which it was glued was not an even plain. When it was glued on originally, it was subjected to a lot of tight binding to force it into place (as is common). With all that potential-energy the first major bump and - BANG! This forcing of a poor joint also contributes to poor or uneven sound. The process of putting it all back together properly usually improves the sound of the instrument through a bit of "de-damping" and evening-out of the stresses on the tabli. ------------ And here's the "after" along with a nice comment from the owner. It is all well now, and sounds beautiful.  Here are some close-up pictures of the top of one of my 'Dhrupad Tamburas' showing the Peghed® planetary pegs installed. They work quite smoothly, eliminating the need for fine-tuning beads and they never slip. Note that I have used cello 'grips' on this particular instrument but these are not cello-style pegs. Cello pegs would have the string winding in the middle. Chuck Heron at Pegheds has a different kind of peg ("akonting") which allows the winding on the outside of the neck like this. So they are great for Indian instruments. There are some other pictures of the Dhrupad Tambura here. Click on the pictures below to make them bigger and see more info - Here are some pictures of sitar bridges of my make. For the traditional 'stag' bridge I use antler mounted to the edge-grain of a split quarter-sawn Western Red-Cedar base. I use some stag but mostly prefer moose antler. I find moose is tighter and more resistant to wear. The pictures here are moose. I prefer western red cedar for the feet. I find when it is used as I do it, ie. on the edge-grain, it both transfers and "holds on" to the vibrations. My Tambura article talks about this a little. For the all-wood bridge I make it from one piece of Lignum Vitae. Lignum Vitae is the hardest, densest wood in the world with a specific gravity over 1.4. Black Ebony has a specific gravity from 1.0-1.3, both will sink in water. Ebony weighs about 70 pounds per cubic foot, and Lignum Vitae weighs over 85 pound per cubic foot. You can see prices here Click on the pictures below to make them bigger and see more info - These are a few pictures of a Personal Tambura I was building last September. The lovely straight grain showed quite nicely the more I smoothed her. Quarter-sawn cedar at it's best. Click on the pictures to make them bigger and see more info - |
