Acoustic Vulcan Lyre

Intro: Acoustic Vulcan Lyre

The Vulcan Lyre, my ultimate testiment to nerdyness. The device one uses when you need to rock out with your Spock out. I must express my gratitude to Michelle my wonderful wife for her help with this project. That she works in a wood shop and knows her way around it has been extremely helpful.

I designed this to be as close in shape to the classic prop from Star Trek as I could, but to be acoustic rather than electric.
EDIT: Here's an MP3 of me playing this lyre
http://secretagent036.googlepages.com/v-lyre-1.mp3

EDIT 2: By popular demand I have added a schematic image with some dimensions. I didn't measure much of anything when I built it so i had to go measure the actual article to get these numbers.

STEP 1: Basic Body

First I designed my lyre shape in a vector graphics program. While adobe illustrator would have made more sense I did it with 3d Studio Max, just cause I like how it handles curves. Technically we can shorten this step to "Draw your lyre".

Then I printed the whole thing out. My printer isn't any bigger than yours, so I had to print it out in sections and then tape it all together. Next I cut out the whole shape, taped it to a big piece of 3/4 inch plywood and cut the sucker out. If you are a better free hand drawer than me you could probably skip most of that and just draw on the plywood. I was trying to get mine as close in shape to Spock's as possible so I was a bit anal.

Next I made a copy of it with some more plywood, then glued the halves together with some clamps.

Oh, uh, see that little area at the bottom that isn't cut out? Yeah, that's important, it does stuff. Namely it gives to something to screw the tail piece to.

STEP 2: Edges

The edges where rough, being made of cheap plywood, so I puttied them. Some simple off the shelf wood putty did this nicely.

STEP 3: Front and Back

Next I got some 1/4 inch ply and cut out a pair of "pick guard" shapes for the front and back. Here I haven't glues them yet, just set them on the body to test the size.

STEP 4: STAIN!

Yes, stain, bad for your clothes, but good for your Vulcan Lyre. Simple stuff really, just brush it on, wait 10 minutes or so, then wipe off the remainder. Then I glued the front and back on and cut a sound hole in the front panel.. Now it's starting to look cool.

STEP 5: Figuring Out Where to Put the Strings and Tuners.

So, by this point I hadn't actually measured anything, so I didn't see any reason to start now. My plan was to have a simple wooden bar tail piece, the strings going over a floating bridge, and going to tuners that went up the neck.

I wanted to sorta eye ball the placement, so I made a fake bridge and tail piece out of paper, taped some strings to it and taped every thing in place. When I had the strings placed evenly I marked the neck where I wanted to drill.

STEP 6: Zither Pins

So I wanted a simple system to tune the strings, and a little research showed me that there is no simpler tuner in the universe than the zither pin. Just drill a hole with a 3/16 bit, and then screw the pin into the hole, done. You can turn the tuners with a clock key (also sold on the site where I got these).

STEP 7: Finishing

I had a few pieces of oak lying around, so I cut the tail piece and bridge from them. The tail piece (which I completely over engineered, smaller next time) was just a block of wood with a dozen small holes drilled through one way and three slightly larger holes through the top.

There are fancier ways to mount a tail peice, and I'm sure someone knows them. I am a novice wood worker, so I decided to go with drywall screws. Yeah, I know, there's no drywall in this thing, but I swear these things work on everything.

The bridge is just a chunk of oak cut to form. It's held in place by the tension of the strings, so you need to get them a little tuned then sort of work the bridge underneath them.

For strings I chose acoustic guitar G strings. The geometry of the lyre can give you a pretty good tonal range, depending on what strings you choose. Heavier strings will generally give you lower notes and vice versa. I tuned mine to a major twelve note scale, you can play a lot using only major scale notes, but if you want a different scale you can always retune it.

I found that once the strings were broken in they keep a tune remarkably well. The whole thing warped a little over time but seems pretty stable. For the record, I went on to build a few more of these, and they both looked a lot better, but I sold them and forgot to get pictures. Oh well.

Oh, a note on string labeling, I had a little trouble sorting out the strings at first so I used markers to color the C strings red and the F strings blue, a system that I totally stole from Irish harps, that also works REALLY well for Vulcan Lyres. The marker rubs off after a while but I don't have to reapply very often.

I hope this has helped and or inspired you to build something cool.

Comments

[kgh111861]

Hi all. It appears this has not been getting much by way of comments, but just to show its still inspiring people, I wanted to share my experience. I've long wanted a "harp" like Spock's, but really only got the bug several years ago when I came acrooss an iPad app of a "Vulcan Harp." A long slow burn ultimately led to me buying a regular off-the-shelf lyre from Amazon, which merely fueled my desire. Around about Christmas last, I found this page and said, "I can do that!" Bear in mind I have never undertaken any woodworking project larger than a pinewood derby car (both as a Cub Scout and as the father of a Cub Scout). I spent the months since thinking, acquiring tools and materials, and launched into it at the beginning of this month. Based somewhat on D10D3's fascinating instructions, I ended up with the picture below. There was a lot of trial and error involved -- more error than trial, I'm afraid -- and in the end, for multiple reasons -- it is not functional. It's made of layers: the core (full silhouette with the sound-box cut out) is 3/4" "MDF Redi-Cut," backed by (again, full silhouette) 1/4" "Luan Redi-Cut" plywood. The spine and arm are another layer of 1/4" Luan, while the "pick-guard" (I just call it the "front") is 1/8" "Bass wood." I wanted to string it like my 16-string lyre, from G3 up to A5 (unfortunately in the opposite direction than I'm used to) so I got three sets of phosphor-bronze guitar strings, but immediately bad things started happening. I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but in rapid succession I noticed that the tuning would immediately loosen and the pitch would plummet, because my layers of wood on the neck were separating even as the zither pin was leaning into the wood and tearing a gouge while the little ball-anchor thing at the bottom was pulling up into the wood on the back -- disappearing at least a quarter-inch into the back through a hole that was drilled out only to slightly larger than the string's diameter. Then the string broke (although I'm not sure how, given what I just said, it ever got enough effective tension to exceed the limit of the string). I am pretty sure that my gluing of the layers was ineffective (both in quality and coverage) as well as that the plywoods I used were too soft. With effectively 1/2" of Luan into which the zither pins were sunk on top of the denser "MDF," I also suspect that the zither pins were literally pushing on the latter rather than penetrating it even though I had predrilled hole, because after I decided to simply string the instrument with fishing line for show the separation of layers still happened even when screwing in the zither pins without any effective string tension. Ultimately, I ended up with a fairly expensive (in time as well as tools and materials) display piece. Nevertheless, I am going to give it another try -- with real hardwood and after consultation with a harp-string vendor to whom some of my lyre-group friends have recommended me for figuring out the best method for stringing it given the construction I am planning. All in all, it has been a great (if frustrating and ultimately disappointing) learning experience. I will, of course, report the results of attempt two....

[D10D3]

I'm going to make a run of these to sell, if anyone in interested let me know.

[BatInTheHat]

I realize that you posted this comment 5 years ago, but if you're still active on here, can I ask how much you sell these for?

[D10D3]

I'm working on a pair of these right now. I'll message you with details.

[Raven Designs]

I want to make something like this so bad, (with my own design though) did you use regular guitar strings for this or some special string?
The sound was beautiful too, I might turn my instrument's music into mp3s for my video game! awesome tutorial!

[Doctor_Duquesne]

My last comment (probably). Instead of taping pieces of the harp template together, it's a lot easier to go to a Kinko's and have the whole thing Xeroxed on one of the big large format copy machines. An 8 x 11 inch page can be easily blown up thee or four hundred times-- even much more-- to make a "life size" copy of the template. This costs about four or five bucks for a 24 x 36 inch copy. To make the neck template for my lyre, I had to blow up the plans 630 per cent to get a 24" neck. It takes a little work (and a tape measure) to get it blown up to the exact size wanted, but you only have to pay for the copies you keep; the ones that came out too small or too large can be thrown away.

[Doctor_Duquesne]

It took a long time with no accurate plans,but I think I got it all sussed out now after getting the neck too big for only 19 strings.

The first one is solid walnut with mahogany plywood on the top, the other is plain plywood. I think I'll settle on using ash because it's strong and cheap (but I wish a little less heavy. Almost finished now. When I finally get it done, it will be a thing of beauty.

[D10D3]

Beautiful lines, very elegant.

[Doctor_Duquesne]

Thank you, sir. :-)

[LittleRedDragon2386]

I lov ethe idea of making your own instruments XD was wondering where you got the zither pins though ^_^ I could do with some myself for my project XD and if I'm allowed may I alter the instructions for my own kind of instrument? Am planning to make my own Guzheng and was kinda getting annoyed when I couldn't find any instructions for them :(

Am really glad you made the Vulcan Lyre as it seemed interesting and looks simple enough for me to make a Guzheng via these simple instructions XD

Hope you'll let me alter the instructions so I can make my own Guzheng ^_^ it much cheaper than buying a full Guzheng made in some other country ((the price for the cheapest Guzhengs are way too high even by British standards!!!))

Keep it up! You're doing a great job  XD  XD  XD

[Doctor_Duquesne]

I don't remember where I got mine, but there's a music supply place that not only sells packages of 100 chrome zither pins for real cheap, but also really cool looking black zither pins.

The Star Trek Tech Manual says the Vulcan harp uses black erandanite pins but since those are a little hard to get here on earth, I use black zither pins instead. They look great especially with colored nylon harp strings and up against a brass fret bar. The fret bar can also be black plastic, and those black zither pins make a good combination.

Anyway, Google "zither pins" and you shouldn't have much trouble finding a supplir of either kind of pins.

'Doc

[D10D3]

Please feel free to use these plans to build any kind of instrument you want. Using the same basic method you could make all sorts of instruments. As for the zither pins you can get them and a lot of other handy stuff here:
http://www.harpkit.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=zpin&Category_Code=0007supplies&Product_Count=1

[Daftehh]

Well, here's mine.
At some point I thought it would be smart to have 19 strings, but that left me with little space between the strings to pluck.
Also, I put the pin holes on the wrong side, so I have an awkward position playing it.
But it turned out pretty good. Thanks for the template.

[D10D3]

Awesome! The bridge spacer bar helps even the strings out I see.

[D10D3]

Added a new picture. This is my second Lyre. Note that instead of having a pickguard style sound board I cut the sound board flush with the edges to give it a cleaner appearance.

[Doctor_Duquesne]

Your 2nd lyre is a beautiful instrument. Looking at the photo, it almost looks like it's made from one piece; almost like guitar construction. I can see how a top panel can be placed to make it look that way, but it also looks like you covered the neck too?

I've been making mine out of walnut, which is costly, so I am always looking for a better way. Would you say how you got the second lyre to look so elegant?

[D10D3]

For the second lyre I covered the whole front and back with a layer of 8th inch plywood rather than a "pickguard" piece of 1/4 inch. This stuff is a higher quality and looks a lot nicer. Also, it was still strong enough to make a decent sound board with a little bracing.

[ieatdick]

im not much of a star trek fan but did want a lyre harp so i decided to make one in my woodtech class. this one has a little diferent shape but i used the same basic steps when planin how to do mine. i use solid mohogany and routerd out the inside instead of going all the way through. then i put a thin peice of oak flosh with the top over the hole. its not as loud as an acustic guitar but it is a good deal louder than an unamped elictric guitar is. i think its sweet thanks for the idea.

[D10D3]

Awesome work, glad I helped with a little inspiration.

[rimar2000]

Good work, nice instrument. But, isn't weak the mast for the cords? I would add a (key, derrick, strut, stanchion, pitprop, prop, brace, puncheon, shore. (pardon, I don't speak Emglish)), although that would alter the aesthetic.