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Tag Archives: joint

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Barun Roy broken joint

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Monday, 7 July 2025 by AnandaMonday, 7 July 2025

One day London based sitarist & composer Jonathan Mayer drove with his car straight from London to SiTAR FAcToRY in Belgium (+/- 8hrs drive). His favorite sitar, recently made by Barun Roy, has a severe joint problem. At first sight the joint has only loosened. A friend of him fixed it with some glue and a piece of metal with two screws over the cracked region and it worked fine for almost a year or so. But now the situation has changed. The crack has opened again and the sitar became unplayable.
JointThe photo clearly shows a very large crack and the neck feels very loose. So I start dismantling the instrument. All the strings, frets, bridges and tuning pegs are removed and neatly stored away. Then all the decoration has to be removed so that I can safely and clearly start the splitting process. But it doesn’t get that far right away. With a little bit of movement and prying, I notice that the joint is actually broken. Suddenly I am left with two parts in my hands.
Clearly broken…
Now we are sure that the sitar has to be completely dismantled and a new joint has to be made.
Splitting the parts goes very smoothly. Barun Roy used the right type of glue.
I don’t have to waste any time loosening the joint because it’s broken anyway. So I can just cut away the remains.
Then I look for a suitable piece of wood to make a new joint. I still have some first-class mahogany lying around and immediately cut a nice piece out of it. Then a very difficult part begins. From that rectangular piece of wood, I now have to make two matching curves that are also tilted at an angle of a few degrees. With a lot of patience and calm, it will be fine.
The gluing can begin. First, glue the piece to the lower half of the neck. Allow it to dry and harden sufficiently, then fit the piece to the neck and glue it in place.
That’s the hardest part done. The tabli can be placed on the tumba and the top plate of the neck can be put back in place.
After allowing some extra drying time, all the decoration is put back in place. The celluloid is held securely in place with glue and bamboo nails. Then all the empty spaces between the body and celluloid must be filled with coloured wax. After the wax has hardened, the excess wax can be scraped off and the lacquer finish is thoroughly cleaned with popote.
Finally pardas, kuntis, ghodi & new strings…

https://www.sitarfactory.be/video/BarunRoyBrokenJoint2.mp4

 

See other Joint repair cases on SiTAR FAcToRY here.

Posted in repair | Tagged Hiren Roy, joint, SitarRepair | Leave a reply

Kartar Chand vintage sitar repair

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Thursday, 27 December 2012 by AnandaMonday, 9 June 2025

In 2009, Hari Chand presented me an old sitar which has been originally made by him and his brother, late Kartar Chand, in the 1970’s. The sitar suffered severely from a loose joint due to “an unfortunate fall from a kitchen table”…, dixit the former owner. How peculiar that no other parts of the instrument were  broken. Since the owner wasn’t interested in this sitar anymore I was the lucky one to receive it.


During the second half of this year I finally found the time to repair and fully restore this instrument. Here are some pictures about the more spectacular part of the process. For this occasion I installed my home-made steam injector again. It has been serving me well in the past (click here), although its use is not always completely without risk. The steam can be very tricky and cause severe burns quickly. But everything went well. As for the joint itself: the wood was split at 2 positions due to an earlier joint adjustment. That’s why I decided to insert a completely new piece of wood.

Now this sitar is completely repaired and carefully renovated, ready to start a new life. It is a very light weight instrument, decorated in a very refined and exquisite way. There are 20 pardas, 12 taravs and a high quality staghorn jawari. The sound is superb, bright and clear, with an incredible tarav response. Well-known qualities for all sitars built by these two excellent craftsmen-brothers!

Posted in repair | Tagged Hari Chand, joint, Kartar Chand, Restoration, SitarRepair | 2 Replies

Naskar tun sitar

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Monday, 19 September 2011 by AnandaTuesday, 27 August 2013

Old Naskar so called “teak sitar…??” turns out to be a regular tun sitar. This sitar has been repaired from a loose joint and twisted neck. Also the tabli has been lowered and the neck has been finished in an open pore look with 6 layers of Danish oil. Almost full restoration… see pics after:

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Naskar, neck, Restoration, SitarRepair | 1 Reply

Naskar teak sitar…??

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Wednesday, 10 August 2011 by AnandaThursday, 21 March 2013

before and during restoration, a few “inside” views…:

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Naskar, neck, Restoration, SitarRepair | 1 Reply

Easy loose joint repair

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Thursday, 21 April 2011 by AnandaThursday, 21 April 2011

This unknown sitar suffers from a loose joint. The playing string came to almost 18 mm above the last parda. In normal conditions this distance should count only 8 – 11 mm.

The reason why the joint became loose is not determined, but most probably “a small accident” during transport has occured the owner said. Anyway, there is a noticeable crack in the joint…

Since this sitar suffers from more than this (cheap wood quality, a bended neck, and also a deformed tabli is there) and the budget is very limited, I agreed to give it a rather easy and cheap repair: cyano-acrylate glue, penetrated into the loose joint parts, reinforced with a metal locker plate. I saw this before on other “fast & easy repaired sitars” in India. Although it doesn’t look good, it worked out to be very efficient.

In other conditions, the better way of repairing this is described in the Repair section.

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, SitarRepair | Leave a reply

Joint Repair II end.

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Tuesday, 12 August 2008 by AnandaTuesday, 12 August 2008

Finaly, at the end of july we were lucky to have had at least a couple of days good weather with nice sunshine. One of these days I succeeded to finish the polishing of this sitar. I’ ve been making some fresh new polish ready during a previous (short) visit of our much beloved sun at the end of june…

A couple of days later the polish has been drying sufficiently. Time to complete the sitar again by mounting the pardas, jiwaris and strings.

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Rikhi Ram, SitarRepair | Leave a reply

Joint Repair II cont”d

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Monday, 9 June 2008 by AnandaMonday, 9 June 2008

The joint has been fitted and glued again. On the left hand side you can see some adjustment strips sitting between the joint and the body.

Then the tabli is glued to the body. A rope is used to keep the tabli fixed and under sufficient pressure at regular points along its contour.

Now this sitar body is ready to get some new polish. But unfortunately we have to wait for the good weather to come…

to be continued

 

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Rikhi Ram, SitarRepair | Leave a reply

Joint Repair II cont’d

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Tuesday, 13 May 2008 by AnandaTuesday, 13 May 2008

home made steam generator

… after some time the glue became softened and the joint can be removed.

Now, the wooden parts need some time to dry thoroughly.

Continue reading →

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Rikhi Ram, SitarRepair | 2 Replies

Joint Repair II

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Monday, 12 May 2008 by AnandaSaturday, 25 November 2017

unloaded picture, try CTRL + F5

This old Rikhi Ram is having a problem: the joint got loose.

unloaded picture, try CTRL + F5

I handled the same problem before on another (left – handed) RR sitar. On that occasion I made a new joint which took a lot of work to make it fit perfectly. Now I turned an old pressure cooker into a steam generator which is used for removing and loosening the animal glue.

First step is to open the sitar :

unloaded picture, try CTRL + F5

Then I drilled a fine hole in the corner area of the joint in which the needles will blast their steam.

unloaded picture, try CTRL + F5

I add water to the pressure cooker and have the power switched on …

steam generator

to be continued here

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Restoration, Rikhi Ram, SitarRepair | 2 Replies

Joint Repair

SiTAR FAcToRY Posted on Monday, 21 August 2006 by AnandaMonday, 21 August 2006

Page added documenting the repair of a joint… Take a look here !!

Posted in repair | Tagged joint, Rikhi Ram, SitarRepair | Leave a reply

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