Building a Prakticello: Build of Materials and making the body

It's been over a year since I "started" this project, but I finally took some time off to build the Prakticello.  For those who are curious about the plans, here is what you get:

The plans specify spruce for the body of the cello. Spruce tone wood is easy to find for guitar bodies, but its difficult to find the right dimensions because the sides of the cello body are 29". Tone wood can also be quite spendy.  With a bit of searching, I found that airplane builders also use spruce and you can order precut pieces.  I ordered slightly larger pieces so I could cut them to right dimensions.  I ordered the spruce from Aircraft Spruce and Specialty Company for $36 including shipping.  


Additional wood is needed for the saddle, bridge, knee, and chest supports.  I picked up several pieces of popular from my local home improvement store for about $15.  Mr. Nussbaum encouraged me to carve the neck and pegs, but I opted to buy a pre carved neck, finger board, nut and pegs from Metropolitan Music for $166.50 including shipping.  I picked up a tail piece on ebay for $8.00, but its wood and heavy so I'm thinking about getting a Wittner aluminum tail piece.  The remaining items that I still need are strings (Jargar  recommended), a bridge, and an endpin.  Here are the assembled materials:

Although the neck is pre carved, the size of the neck block gives me pause and I'm wondering who I know has a jigsaw or bandsaw I could borrow for a couple of hours.  I built the body of the Prakticello, here it is glued and clamped together.  For scale, the square on the cello is 16".

Flying with a cello, part 2

On my return flight, I arrived at the airport three hours early expecting more ticketing fun and games.  Sure enough, even though everything (according to the Southwest ticket agents) was done correctly, the ticket agents ended up calling Southwest's Dallas headquarters to get a special dispensation to release my tickets.   Everyone at Southwest was very helpful; at one point a ticket agent was holding a phone in each ear at the same time.  The whole process took about 30 minutes to issue a boarding pass.  Southwest has an open seating policy, so I was told to talk to the gate agents when boarding.  


Going through security was uneventful.  The case fit through the xray machine with a little room to spare.  I was not asked to remove the end pin.  Walking through the airport was kind of fun; people smiled and parents would tell their children to look at the cello.  I might as well have been leading a llama through the concourse, because as everyone knows people love llamas.


At the gate, I asked the boarding agent about when to board and what were Southwest's regulations concerning the transport of cellos.  She didn't know if there were any regulations, but she let me board with the families with small children so I could find a pair of seats more easily.  Once on board, the stewards and stewardesses knew that I was flying with a cello and led me to the last row of seats. I also asked for a seat belt extender to secure the cello case.  The space between the seats was not large enough to fit the cello case so I had to pull up the seat cushion.  


I've always been hesitant about pulling up seat cushions on a plane ever since my cell phone slipped between the seat crack on a flight soon after 9/11.  When I pulled up the seat cushion that time, I found a number of bullets in the seat presumably left by an air marshall.  Long story short, the flight was delayed and I received the evil eye from the other passengers. 

Happily there were only stale peanuts and I secured the cello by sliding the seatbelt through the handle.  The flight was uneventful and the cello arrived safe and sound.


I would say that the important stuff about transporting a cello on a plane are:

1. Give yourself lots of time to deal with ticketing problems and to avoid the stress of trying to make a flight when there are long security lines.
2. Talk to the ticket agents and gate agents, they will help expedite the process.
3. Take a direct flight if you can.
4. If you have to take connecting flight, give yourself plenty of time between connections.
5. Smile a lot, it really does help make things go smoothly.

orchestra practice

Yesterday was the first practice for my church orchestra.  I was wondering who would show up and it turned out to be a diverse group. 

• 3 cellos
• 3 violins
• 2 violas
• 1 oboe/english horn
• 1 flute
• 3 clarinets 
• 2 alto saxes

We actually sounded OK and I was more or less able to keep up/play in time with everyone.  The director is our church's choral director but she did a great job mixing and matching sections of the different pieces.   I was mighty pleased since I haven't played in an orchestra since junior high.  One of the other cellists even asked me if I wanted to get together and work on duets.  I am so jazzed.

Building a Prakticello: The Plans Arrive

This is a departure from my cheesy java bits, but I'm building a Prakticello; so this will be a build log of sorts. 

I travel a bit and I really miss cello practice when I'm out of town. I thought about getting a silent or electric cello but none of them seem to be overhead compartment friendly except the Ned Steinberger electric cellos. The NS cellos look awesome, and in my imaginary world I can see myself playing Bjork or the Clash's "Straight to hell" and becoming a rock star cellist. But I bought a cello over the summer, so I'm just not ready to plunk down $2K for another instrument. Once again cheapness (or more kindly, thrift) crushes my dreams. Another mitigating factor is that I joined the Christmas orchestra at my church. While the pieces are not particularly difficult, most of the songs are in F major and I'm still kinda banging around C major in the Suzuki 2 pieces.  Yeah, I know I should practice my scales more often. Anyway, I don't want to sound like an ass because my extension sucks. I ordered a set of plans from the inventor of the Prakticello, Mr. Ernest Nussbaum. The plans were written circa 1985 and they have the sort of charm of plans ordered from the back of Popular Mechanics. The plans are hand drawn (as opposed to be done in a CAD package) and the hand lettering is charming, not Leroy lettering but you can see faint lines drawn in to guide the lettering. The plans come with a 22 page instruction manual written in a Courier font adding a typewritten charm. You can imagine Mr Nussbaum banging away on an IBM Selectric. The plans are actually for a Traviola, which is the electrified version of the Prakticello. They contain the build of materials and general instructions which include building a small amp. For my purposes, I'll stick to the silent cello build for now. There are a couple of photos of the Prakticello in the manual and the website, but they really don't do the Prakticello justice. I found these pics on a discussion board: