eric@phantasypsalteries.com

9/04/09—I've recently begun a new system where I have the frames for custom ordered psalteries already pre-built. This will (hopefully) reduce the time it takes to build the psaltery. As a result, the expected time listed for a custom ordered instrument is now four to six weeks.

A few of the pre-built frames from the Treasure Trove

7/02/09—After months of testing and planning, I've finally built a three octave bowed psaltery.

A 3 Octave (37 strings) Bowed Psaltery

The 3 octave psaltery starts on G2, a full octave below the regular 2 1/2 octave model. It measures 35" long, 12" wide, and 3" tall. Surprisingly, it weighs under 5 pounds.

1/27/09—My first book on building bowed psalteries has been recently published, and is currently available on Amazon.com.

In addition to simply showing how a bowed psaltery is built, the book also includes a lot of other useful information on bows, tuning, playing, and maintaining your psaltery. It would make a great resource for those that are curious and would like to know more about their instruments.

The first of its kind: a book solely dedicated to building bowed psalteries

11/4/08—Below you can see a picture of the new style of rosette that is now available. It has a somewhat unusual combination of colors, (with both red and blue), and definitely has a southwestern feel to it.

At 1/2″ wide, it’s also the biggest/widest rosette available too

6/12/08—I have decided to launch a new sub-domain of the Phantasy Psalteries website, entitled: Archimedes' Workshop. Over the past several months, I've been making custom tuning wrenches just for fun, and now I feel it's time to give them their own official home.

Two examples of the wrenches that you will find at Archimedes' Workshop

I'm going to try and integrate the wrenches and options on this new site in with the order forms on Phantasy Psalteries. Although unlike other accessories, these wrenches will also be available to purchase individually without a psaltery.

And, to help kick things off, I've made a video showing the building procedure of making one of these custom tuning wrenches: (music credits go to Kevin MacLeod)

5/6/08—Since the figure in the Bearclaw Sitka Spruce tops was so highly variable, I've decided to listed them individually on the Treasure Trove.

One example of the "Bearclaw" figure sometimes found in Sitka Spruce

3/27/08—I've added a few new note marker options. (You can check out all the options here.) The first is the elegant Black Star Diopside.

Black Star Diopside reflects a beautiful floating light within the stone

And the second addition is a timeless classic: pearls.

Genuine pearls cultured on a freshwater pearl farm

I'm continually experimenting with new stones and new designs for note markers. In the future, I hope to offer even more options. Hopefully one such option that's coming soon will be red jasper.

2/1/08—I've added a few new options to the custom order page. They are: carbon fiber saddles, and black tuning/hitch pins.

Elegant black pins (left) and carbon fiber bridge saddles (right)

These are only a few of the newest additions that I have planned on the horizon. Slowly but surely I hope to get around to adding or at least experimenting with all of the improvements on my "to do" list!

1/18/08—Delignit pinblocks are here!

So just what is Delignit? Delignit is a laminated pinblock material made of European Beech and bonded with phenolic resins. It is widely used in high-end pianos worldwide, and is actually imported from Germany.

In a nutshell, it is a specialized form of plywood that I’ve now adapted to be used in bowed psalteries to give them even more tuning stability. All psalteries from here on out will have an upper surface of Delignit where the tuning pins make contact with the pinblock. 

The many layers of Delignit can be seen atop a traditional maple pinblock

Since there are so many layers of wood that contact the tuning pin, the pinblock’s surface is guaranteed to be consistent and free of any large defects. Also, since the wood is cross-laminated with the grain running perpendicular to the adjacent layers, it less susceptible to movement during changes in weather.

What it all amounts to is this: your bowed psaltery will be more likely to remain in tune.

1/5/08—There are a few new options available on custom orders, with many more exciting changes on the horizon! I was planning on waiting to release all of the updates at once, but felt it would be best to do it more gradually in stages.

So for now, one of the main additions to the custom ordering options will be laser-cut roses:

They aren't hand-crafted, but you have to admit they're beautiful

I've fought and resisted this for a while now, but decided I'd finally cave in and do it. There's just something so unsettling about using something that has basically been cut and patterned by a robot. But, I guess I'll succumb to the demand of these "cookie cutter" items.

Check 'em out at: Woods and Materials: Roses and Rosettes and the ordering option can also be found on the custom order form too.

11/19/07—I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on shorter bows, and I've decided to include 1/32 size violin bows as an available bow option. As a result of this, I am shifting everything to the shorter end of the spectrum. Now, the 1/16 size will be standard, with the 1/32 being the small size, and the 1/8 size, (which was previously the standard size), will now be the large size. I will still continue to carry 1/4 size bows as well, which I would now consider to be size XL.

The newest addition to the family of available violin bows: a 1/32 size bow

10/23/07—I’m proud to announce the beginning of my blog about bowed psalteries. I plan to use this area as an outlet to all of my ideas and thoughts on developing the bowed psaltery. Here's a little link banner for it:

Basically, anything that might be too trivial or irrelevant for my official news and updates page will be listed on the blog. I hope to use this area to bounce around ideas and thoughts to incorporate into making a “perfect” bowed psaltery. (Whatever that may be to each person.)

I'll do my best to try and update the blog a few times a week, so go check it out!

10/5/07—I've decided to include a high-quality gooseneck-style tuning wrench with all psalteries sold from this point on. These wrenches feature a turned hardwood handle, a long overall length for easier tuning, and an 8-star recess to help fit the wrench on the square tuning pins quickly and easily. For those that still may prefer the T-Handle wrench, I've left that as an option on the order form as well.

A good illustration of the length of the gooseneck tuning wrench

Basically, it just came down to this question: "If I were to use a tuning wrench myself, which one would I use?" The answer for me, hands-down, is the long, gooseneck-style tuning wrench. I guess it came down to the golden rule—if I'd much rather use a higher-quality wrench myself, why not make it available as the standard to everyone? Accordingly, I've bought these wrenches in bulk, and therefore can still offer these in place of the T-Handle wrenches without any sort of price increase.

9/1/07—After nearly a month of writing, taking pictures, building, etc. I'm proud to announce the release of a separate bowed psaltery website, pertaining to all aspects of building a bowed psaltery. The website is called A Psimple Psaltery:

If you are at all interested in building psalteries, or any of the technical aspects of the instrument, I highly recommend you take a look! There are dozens of photos, CAD drawings, sound clips, videos - the whole works.

8/6/07—Today I received numerous wound string samples, and combined with the ones I already had on hand, I was able to paint a much clearer picture of the potential of wound strings. I stripped the winding(s) off each string, and with the help of a micrometer, was able to get an exact measurement of all the strings, including their core diameter, winding size, etc. To date, I've analyzed dozens of samples of phosphor bronze, stainless steel, nickel-plated steel, and silver-plated copper strings. All this in the quest to build a better instrument (which can, in turn, sound even sweeter music.)

Measuring the core of a stainless-steel wound string, which is reading .012" diameter

It seems that nearly every stringed instrument available today (guitar, mandolin, violin, cello, etc.) utilizes wound strings in some form or another. Accordingly, when I was initially studying bowed psalteries, I was quite taken aback when I found only plain-steel strings on nearly all bowed psalteries (which have a very limited high/soprano range.) "Why hasn't anyone fully cracked into these uncharted waters?"

I look forward to exploring the many opportunities of stringing my bowed psalteries with all sorts of over-wound strings. With the testing that I did today, I will take this data and put it into spreadsheets, which then gives a much better idea of the range of each string material and gauge. But I can tell you just from my initial readings, and from the few instruments I've built with wound strings, that the future for wound strings on bowed psalteries is very bright!

7/30/07—I just finished building the frame of a psaltery using a new technique of boring out parts of the pinblock and sides. I made the psaltery frame of solid Bloodwood at a full 1 1/2" height, with a hard maple pinblock, and then weighed it: it was only 1 pound 10.2 ounces. (Frame only.)

Scale readout of 1 pound, 10.2 ounces for the frame

Because Bloodwood is an incredibly dense hardwood, (almost as heavy as Ebony), I now feel confident enough to build a bowed psaltery that is light enough to play in your hand from any hardwood available. This frame just rings and resonates when I knock it; it is like nothing else that I have built to date. 

I have now listed many dense and/or tropical hardwoods for use as backs and sides in the woods and materials page, which should also be available for custom psalteries as well.

6/24/07—PhantasyPsalteries.com is officially online! Many sections are still unfinished, but I hope to have them shored up within the next few weeks.

The original scan of the cricket for the logo

For those wondering, I have chosen a cricket in flight as my website logo. A cricket, because they were probably the world's very first fiddlers! (I have frequently sat in bed at night, after building bowed psalteries during the day, and have heard them chirping - I couldn't help but see some kinship.) As for a cricket in flight, I felt that the outspread wings were a good fit for the phantasy theme for the site. I sort of let my imagine fly away at times.

Copyright © 2010 Eric Meier