THE ANTLYRE

 

My friend Tim, an ex-forest ranger in SE Ohio, gave me a deer antler that he found on his land. It sat in the back of Ms. S’s pickup truck for quite a while.

At first I was going to use it as inlay material, but started thinking about making an instrument out of it. I made a lot of drawings in Photoshop. The body shape was based on Golden Mean proportions.

 

The sides, back and top are cherry. I was able to get all three side pieces out of one bend.  The inlay is various colored MOTS and gourd shell. Black plastic binding with some mammoth tusk detailing.

The tuners are zither pins. The strings are nylon fishing line. It also features stereo piezo pick-ups.