Daniel Joseph Betsill, luthier, et al

djbetsill@bellsouth.net

Artist's Profile, UGA Website 2008

Artist's Statement

My Resume

Saturday, March 16, 2013

A day off for bowlturning. See here for project log and scroll down to 'A Beechwood Bowl.'

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Progress on the symphonia. See here for project log.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Progress on the symphonia. See here for project log.

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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The underside of the symphonia soundboard showing the brace locations. Also the key blanks layed out in the reciever. See here for project log.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

A new Hammack dulcimer is complete. See here for project log.

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

I'm doing a rubbed out dark cherry finish for an antique look on the instrument stand.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Some recent activity with Stockhausen's Heaven's Door. See the Instruments page for project description. The Door was set to be performed at Lincoln Center in NYC yesterday, but unfortunatly Hurricane Sandy put the skids on and the door is headed back to Atlanta unplayed. A reschedule is in the works. In the mean time, WABE did this article on the piece:

WABE on City Cafe and a corresponding Georgia State Article

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Working on the symphonia. Soundboard linings are on the carcass and braces are on the soundboard.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Working on a dual instrument stand in cherry. Sinfonia lid as prop.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Building a library table for my cousin's new house. Design inspired by a table found in William Morris' Kelmscott Manor. See the furniture page for build progress. This is all laminated and planed 2x6 lumber.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Work progresses on the latest Hammack Dulcimer. See here for project log. Also lurking is a Dreadnought 12-string I'm repairing.

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Saturday, July 21, 2012

A new da Salo cittern is complete. See this page for project details. Scroll down to 'A More Delicate Cittern'

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Saturday, July 21, 2012

I am beginning my research on the 16th c. vihuela de mano for a commission. I've always wanted to make one of these instruments, having danced around them chronologically with my study of the pre-renaissance vielles, the chitarra battente and the baroque guitar. On the page I have created I will compile my research of the three surviving documented examples, a survey of the iconography and of the revival instruments. Click here.

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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Beginning a Hammack model dulcimer (Smithsonian collection), in walnut. The slab I had was far from quartersawn, so slicing the sides at a true quarter on the bandsaw was a challenge. The pieces in the front have been drum sanded to just over 2mm thickness. The block to the left will be the headstock. I've created a project page for this instrument here.

The rose for my latest cittern, supplied by a local lute player who has branched into rosette making and based this design on the rose window at the Duomo. The split posts are ready to be glued on. See this page for project log. Scroll down to 'A More Delicate Cittern'

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Sunday, June 10, 2012

A birdhouse for Shannon's Shakespere garden at the Art Station, Stone Mountain.

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Like I don't have enough fretting pictures on my cittern page.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Splitting the spars for the daSalo cittern. Splitting rather than sawing ensures straight grain with no runout.

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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The yellow edges of this sitka spruce soundboard tell a story. I got this with a cache of other soundboards from Vancouver lutemaker Grant Tomlinson back in 1999. He threw a few of these pre-joined tops in my order 'for free', I presume because they were too small for his intruments and he knew I was in the cittern business. He couldn't remember exactly but he thought they had been prepared for Renaissance guitars. He mentioned he had had them for at least 20 years. So they're well seasoned by now!

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Sunday, May 6, 2012

A new bowl of apple wood. This wood came to Atlanta from Michigan through a friend of a friend who made a journey up there last year. Good stuff!

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Saturday, May 5, 2012

Work resumes on the renaissance cittern. Turning the pegs in pearwood this time instead of ebony. See this page for more progress photos.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

The latest Choc guitar is complete. See this page for the project log.

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Sunday, April 1, 2012

Fretting the Choc with gut.

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Choc is 'in the white' and getting the soundboard final sanded and the pegs fit. The last piece to be made and attached is the nut.

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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

A bridge replacement of an instrument made in Mexico to plans drawn up in Japan. This bridge had slots rather than holes tapped for the strings.

Using a template to transfer the hole spacing.

The new bridge in place with the Choc lurking in the background ready for the binding channel to be routed.

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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Gluing the bridge of the Choc baroque guitar. See this page for the project log.

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Laying out the Choc peghead veneer.

Tha-a trim-ming of tha mer-ry peg-head sweet sing-ing in tha choir! I'm listening to Alfred Deller while I do this. Chirstmas has not worn off yet.

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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Bending the liners for the Baroque guitar.

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Saturday October 22, 2011

Another Baroque guitar in the making. See this page the project log of the previous instrument.

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Sunday, August 7, 2011

This is the beginnings of a provencial dining table sinilar to the one I made for our breakfast area, with curved legs and profield streachers. The legs are two 2x4's here clamped up two at a time. One of the 1x6 boards for the top is standing on edge getting biscuits fixed in place for joining. This will be a nice 2-tone antiqued paint-finished table that looks like any you'd care to buy from Pottery Barn but costs about $30 in materials because it's made from lumber from Home Depot. See the furniture page for details as it progresses.

And a bevy of bowls that just got finished. Upper left is another "Emory Oak", the front and center is an "Olmstead Park" which warped nicely although it's had to see fron this angle. Upper right is a bowl which I really didn't like the shape of but the rubbed out gold leaf makes it good.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2011

Progress on the Baroque guitar. See this page for project log

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Sunday, July 10, 2011

The beginnings of a crook-shape walking stick. Clamping up the assembly with waterproof Tightbond. See the Stickmaking page for the rest of the process

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Saturday, April 30, 2011

The baroque guitar peghead is complete, with the pegs rough tapered, standing a little tall. With some of the implementia of peg making.

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Workshop in a closet.

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Online Chap Book:

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

-William Blake

Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly shows to them that his own soul is satisfied with its daimon, that portion of himself that Zeus has given to every man to be his guardian and guide and that his soul does all that the daimon wishes. And this is every man's understanding and reason.

-Marcus Aurelius

And there the sunset skies unseal’d, Like lands he never knew, /Beyond to-morrow’s battle-field /Lay open out of view /To ride into.

-D.G. Rossetti, from The Staff and Script

Let Athene dwell in the cities she's founded. For me, the woodlands.

-Virgil

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,/ Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life/ They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

-from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

He slept thus until late morning, while the pillows arranged themselves into a large flat plain on which his now quieter sleep would wander. On these white roads, he slowly returned to his senses, to daylight, to reality - and at last he opened his eyes as does a sleeping passenger when the train stops at a station.

-Bruno Schultz, from The Cinnamon Shops

Deus Mysterium tremendum et fascinans.

-Rudolph Otto

Are you angry with him whose armpits stink? Are you angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good does this anger do you? He has such a mouth, he has such armpits: it is necessary that such an emination must come from such things. But the man has reason, it will be said, and he is able, if he takes pains, to discover wherein he offends. . .there is no need of anger, the stuff of tragic actors and whores.

-Marcus Aurelius

Green aisles of Pullman cars/ Soothe me like trees/ Woven in old tapestries/ I love to watch the stars/ Remote above the earth/ In watery light,/ while in the lower berth./ I whirl through the night.

-William Rose Benet

With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.

-Jinnah

The full streams feed on flower of rushes, /Ripe grasses trammel a traveling foot, /The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes/
From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;/And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,/And the oat is heard above the lyre, /And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes /The chestnut husk at the chestnut root.

-Swinburne

Both music and dance are voices of the way.

-Zenji Hakuin

The richest of men is not more fortunate than he that has enough for the day, unless his good fortune attend him to the grave and he finish his life in honour. Many wealthy men are fortunate, whilst many of only moderate riches are blessed by fortune. The wealthier but less fortunate man is indeed better furnished with means to gratify his passions and to bear the blow of a great calamity. But if the other is less able to do these two things, his happy life saves him from the need to do them.

-Solon to Croesus, Herodotus (I, 32)

For the dulcimer rhimes are grace place and the like.

-Christopher Smart