A lute is a particularly magestic instrument, and used to be the primary instrument for music students. I designed and built this one from scratch as my first project in RISD, as well as a system for further lute construction, when I wend there for graduate studies.

Back staves, neck and headstock are maple.

The area carved into the soundhole is referred to as a "rose", in lute terminology. My challenge in designing this was to integrate a fourfold (cross) and a sixfold (star of David) geometric symetry in the design of the "knot". There is another well-known lute rose, named the "The Knot of Leonardo."

A lot of preliminary work goes into the creation of a lute. To make this acurately 50 years ago, I first had to build a form, which was placed on a stand with a u-joint designed to set the body in any position for inlaying and mitering the purfling lines. 

Neck is made of birdseye maple, inserted and glued with a longitudinal dovetail--a very tricky joint to carve. 

Joint at neck of lute is with a sliding dovetail. Mitered inlay shows staves ast they oonverge toward the neck.

The beauty of this instrument is as nice as the natural reverb of it's timbre. But as a guitarist, I can definitely say it could use a "waist".

I was inspired to build this lute after seeing one made by the late luthier, Anthony Murray. His brought tears to my eyes. This one is a seven course design with 13 strings.