How to Make a Recorder Instrument
The recorder, a woodwind musical instrument, is prevalent among elementary schools today, as plastic versions of the instrument can be produced with little cost. Perhaps your son or daughter is learning the recorder now, or perhaps you yourself owned one in grade school. However, though it serves well to teach many schoolchildren the fundamentals of music theory, advanced recorder playing is complex, like any other instrument, and requires a great deal of dedication and practice. Similarly, constructing a recorder out of its traditional material, wood, is a difficult, complicated process, but can be done with some effort. Below is an outline of how to construct a recorder from a traditional material, boxwood.
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Things You'll Need
- Boxwood (starting material)
- Band saw
- Lathe
- Regular drill bit
- Spoon drill bit
- Reamer
- Calipers
- Chisel
- Windway Cutter
- Small piece (4 or 5 inches) of juniper or cedar wood
Instructions
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1
Choose a block of boxwood with adequate dimensions. Select a portion of the wood free of cracks, knots, fungus or faults. With a pencil, mark a section of appropriate diameter- between one and two inches.
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2
Cut away the surrounding wood using the band saw. Drill through the center of the block, or midpoint, forming a hollow channel. You may use a regular drill bit for this step.
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3
Insert the block of wood on the lathe. It is important to ensure that the block is perfectly centered, as being-off center by a few millimeters could result in a lop-sided instrument. The resulting shape should be a perfectly rounded cylinder.
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4
Keeping the block of wood on the lathe, use a spoon drill---otherwise known as a spoon bit, which is a curved shank with a point shaped like a spoon---to widen the hole inside the wood, known as the bore.
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5
Use a reamer to further widen the bore inside the cylinder, which now more resembles a tube. Insert the reamer gently into the bore to avoid harming or marring the wood, and ream to the final diameter, depending upon the desired size of the recorder. The final bore should be slightly tapered toward the bottom. Use calipers to determine that the finished tube is of the correct measurements.
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6
Place the recorder back on the lathe (optional step). As the tube sits fixed on the lathe and spins, manually chisel designs into the wood. Many recorder-makers prefer to embellish the instrument by following designs common to the Baroque period. This was the period during which the recorder's popularity began to wane in light of the evolution of other stronger and more popular instruments, yet whose style was later re-adapted by French musician Arnold Dolmetsch who revived the instrument less than 100 years ago (www.recorderhomepage.net).
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Form the head joint---the top of the recorder you blow into; the middle joint---the barrel that holds the finger holes; and the foot joint---the bottom of the instrument turned to the side, with one hole. Use sandpaper to smooth down the edges of each to ensure that they properly fit together.
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With the instrument still mounted on the lathe, cut the labium, or lip, on the recorder using a chisel. The labium is a slanted ramp in which air blown down and out of the wind-way collides against the edge; then some of the air flows into the bore of the main body, oscillating at a certain frequency (www.patentstorm.com)
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Drill the finger holes: seven in the front, and one in the back, for the thumb. Typically, holes are bored undersized, so that later on the instrument can be fine-tuned (www.flute-a-bec.com).
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10
Using a small piece of juniper or cedar wood, hand-carve the block. The block is inserted into the head of the recorder, closing off the instrument and creating a whistle effect (www.youtube.com). Bevel, or cut at a 45 degree angle, the top of the head joint to create the mouthpiece.
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Test the recorder. If it is out of tune, adjust the holes accordingly. Fine-tuning your recorder is very complex and requires a great deal of skill and patience. Test for several hours to ensure that it plays consistently (www.flute-a-bec.com)
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