New (to me) Zhongruan.

[stacote]

So the Zhongruan I've been looking for for some months finally surfaced and I purchased it from a banjo player who got it in Beijing a few years back (I mentioned it in another post a week or so ago). After a week of patiently waiting (or not so patiently) it arrived at my doorstep.

I'm not sure who made it but it looks to be very well made. Much better than many of the western style instruments (guitars) I've seen from China. An inspection mirror through the soundhole shows a very clean precise interior as well...I'm impressed. Sorry, it's just the luthier in me wanting to know what's going on inside...

I'm posting a photo of the chop mark in case somone might recognize the maker.

The body/neck/head is a solid "rosewood" (not sure which variety but it does add some weight to the instrument), the top/back is made of a high quality wood (Paulownia, I believe) and the pegs look to be black ox horn, not a synthetic material. The frets are brass or another gold-ish colored metal.

Overall it's in great shape except for a couple of the frets need a little attention. On these the wood base has warped a little, releasing the glue and making the fret a little high on one end. It looks like an easy fix which I'll get to when I change the strings.

Noodling around on it proved to be much less of a learning curve than I expected. For a guitarist the left hand is no different and the positions fall under the fingers very naturally. The right hand will take a little learning for me, a fingerpicker, to get the pick technique under control. The number music notation will also take a bit to get into my head...it's a very cool LOUD instrument.

Sorry for blathering on. I've been more than a little apprehensive about venturing into a relm that I'm not particularly familiar with so it's exciting to find that it's not going to be so bad as I imagined. I might just be able to play with my friends chinese group afterall.

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[edcat7]

Sorry I don't read Chinese except for the menu and a few poems. Any Chinese readers here?

My SGN has a cheapish looking sticker where your stamp is and none of the words match. Whether or not it is a SGN I'm sure you'll have a lot more fun playing it than me, whose teacher has gone back to Taiwan.

btw. without seening it, my expensive liuqin has developed a crack in the back. I've found a luthier on the internet who repairs cracks from £35 and since the tone hasn't been affected I've been procrastinating with getting it repaired. What are you thoughts?

[davidmdahl]

Hello Ed,

I suggest getting the crack fixed sooner than later, in case the crack continues to travel.

Congratulations on the zhongruan, stacote. I haven't done more than noodle around on mine, but even that is fun.

Best wishes,

David

[stacote]

I'm not sure how those are made but it looks like the body/neck is carved out of a single piece of wood or perhaps two pieces glued together like western violins. So the crack is most likely not a glue line opening up but an actual split in the wood.

Those kinds of cracks (most cracks actually that aren't the result of an impact) are because of the wood drying out. Maybe where you live is drier than where your instrument was made or the wood wasn't properly dried before the instrument was made. I suspect it's dryer where you are as you say it's made by a quality maker (expensive). Winter is bad in many northern areas.

Try to bring your humidity up in the case. It should be in the range of 45 - 55%. Lower and your wood will be move towards being too dry and higher might cause warpage to the fingerboard messing with your action (strings might go higher over the frets). A simple and very cost effective humidifier is made from a 250ml (1 cup) plastic yogurt container (or smaller if you can find one, not larger), enjoy the yogurt with some berries or sliced fruit, wash the plastic container, punch a half dozen holes in the top, place a damp sponge inside, put the lid on and place in the case with your instrument. You'll have to check the sponge every couple days and wash it with soap fairly often as they tend to gather mold if not cleaned out once in a while. But that should bring the humidity up inside the case.

If you see the crack closing up then we're on the right track.

To your question: Sometimes the crack will close with proper humidity and it can be glued shut using hot hide glue, fish glue or occasionally cyanoacrylate (crazy glue, not my first choice). I'd not recommend yellow carpenters glue although many luthiers use it. It will work fine if the luthier is experienced but I just think the conscientious luthier will do the work using high quality materials...just my prejudiced opinion. Then a little finish touch-up and you'll be hard pressed to see it.

Most times a better method would be: a sliver of the same kind of wood (I've read that liuqins are often made of sandal wood or rosewood) will have to be trimed to fit into the crack and glued. It's then matched for color and the finish blended in.

I would recommend this last method over just gluing the crack. It may cost a little more but if it's a valued instrument it's well worth doing it properly.

I don't know many repair techs in London who could fix it for you (I'm sure there's lots of repair folks) but here's a few luthiers that might be able to help you out. They won't be overly cheap but I'd certainly trust them with my expensive instruments.

www.marcoskaiser.com/
www.lutemaker.com/
www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/

Or Alexander Batov. He does fantastic work. He's not in London but in Lewes near Brighton. Give you a chance to go for a road trip to the sea.

www.vihuelademano.com/

[stacote]

Thanks David. And thanks to you and to Ed. It was you two that filled me in on what to look for when I first joined this forum. I appreciate the help you guys gave.

[edcat7]

Thanks stacote,

Do you have personal knowledge of the links given? For they all claim to be good. I found a Mathias Herbst and his website is herbstguitars.co.uk

I emailed him last Spring and he advised me to wait until the summer when the weather is drier.

Incidently his workshop is close to www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/
(the UK being tiny compared to the US and Canada)

[stacote]

I'm not familiar with the work of Mathias herbst but his stuff looks nice.

I know Alexander Batov personally and I am familiar with his excellent instruments so can vouche for his skill.

The other three I know from their instruments and their stellar reputation in the lute and baroque guitar world. I have played their instruments and although they don't make asian instruments, that I know of, I can certainly recommend their lutherie work. If Stephan and Sandy www.lutesandguitars.co.uk/ are near you I'd suggest checking out what they will do. If they won't or cannot then I'm sure they can direct you further. Stephen Gottlieb www.lutemaker.com/ is also highly respected in the lute world for his very fine work.

I've just recently become familiar with Marcos work (a friend purchased one of his instruments) and it's very good.

I don't know their prices or how easy, or not, they are to work with so I can only base my recommendation on the quality of their work.

I hope that helps.

Scot.

[edcat7]

Thanks Scot. When I said my liuqin is expensive, it's expensive to me. If the above luthiers charge too much then I'll go with Mathias. Will contact them shortly. Thanks.

Ed

[stacote]

That's a good plan of action, Ed.

Whom ever you go with, just be sure they will repair it properly and not just fill the crack with glue. I've seen lots of that kind of repairs in my shop and they're never pretty to clean up and re-fix the way they should have been to start with.

[Blue]

The characters that you see on the picture are 微琴 (WeiQin). Someone's name?

[stacote]

Thank you Allentchang. I suspect it's the name of the maker or company that made the Zhongruan...I always like to know the name of the person who made my musical instruments, if I can find out. It's a connection to another human, one I may never actually know but by knowing their name I feel I can better appreciate the effort they put in making the object in my hands.

[edcat7]

Scot,

I've contacted Stephen and Sandi and am awaiting their reply.

I've also have some tuning issues with it. For example, a D on the second string doesn't sound exactly like a D on the first string. Whilst it can be alleviated somewhat by rotating the bridge, this is only a temporary measure. Can it be fixed? David's zhongruan also has the same problem.

Thanks

Ed

[stacote]

Hey Ed,

The tuning issue could be a couple things. My thoughts: the way the frets are designed (being up on a little piece of wood) in many of the chinese plucked instruments opens the door for tuning issues if they aren't placed VERY carefully. I suspect that one or other of the frets may be slightly misplaced. The good news is because of the way the frets are designed it's relatively easy to adjust the fret placement by carefull loosening the suspect fret and re-gluing it in the proper place...but I'd have to be sure that particular fret (which ever it may be)was the issue before I'd tackle that, it may be opening a big can of worms. A qualified luthier/repair person will have the tools to tell which fret is the problematic one.

The other thing is that the shorter the string length on an instrument the more accurate the frets need to be. That's why cheap soprano ukuleles are notoriously out of tune.

If the issue is fixed by angling the bridge then that can be fixed by adjusting the string length at the bridge (shaping the bridge to accomidate the different strings). This is quite common in classical and steelstring guitars (you'll also see electric guitars with adjustable bridges).

[edcat7]

Thanks Scot, I tried my teacher's liuqin and it didn't have this tuning problem. All-in-all it sounds relatively easy to correct.

btw. I opened my case to check the liuqin and oh! I've fallen in love with it again - especially since I now know the shortcomings can be fixed.

Oh yes another thing:

The liuqin is known for it's high pitched sound. My teacher's £2000 liuqin has been designed so it's not so high-pitched. One summer whilst playing my liuqin in the garden, for a short while, the tone deepened and the tuning problems vanished. About an hour later it reverted back to normal. Is this just down to temperature and humidity? I wish it had permanently changed.

[stacote]

Humidity and temperature fluctuations can change the tone of all wood instruments quite significantly even over a few hours. You should hear the western lute players whimper when summer arrives.

Wood, being a natural material absorbs moisture and dries out again. As a builder you try to reach a compromise with humidity if you don't know where the instrument will go and if you do know then many times it's possible to replicate the humidity of the new location in the shop. This can get crazy if making a bunch of instruments going to various locations over the world.

Your liuqin sounding better after playing in the garden is probably because it was effected by the humidity there, which would have warmed up the sound and maybe allowed the little wooden bits to move back to their original place. Check the humidity in your home or where you keep your instruments. If it tends to be dry then you might want to bring the humidity up a little (50+/-% usually works well) and conversely if it's moist a de-humidifier might be of some help.

But lots of times changing tone to our instruments is just one of those "gotta live with it" occassions.