I have no idea how to build a barbitos, which means that I am learning as I go. Fortunately, Cassidy Frye, Sculpture technician at the college of Wooster has been helping me throughout the process.
Lyre arms in progress 
lyre arms in progress 
Patched crack with tape in wooden lyre arm 
wooden bowl and wooden lyre arms to be assembled
For my first prototype, I used materials purchased at a local thrift store: an inexpensive wooden chair and salad bowl. I purchased the chair because I thought its bent legs would make great barbitos arms, because of their curve (see diagram 1). I am very new to this project but as far as I can tell as long as the arms are strong, curved and between 2-4 ft long, whatever wood or material used is fine. With Cassidy’s instruction, I used a hacksaw to take it apart and form the arms. I then plugged the holes left in the arms by the chair’s deconstruction with dowels and more wood glue. My arms are complete!
My barbitos arms are 40 inches long. Barbitos arms were long; they were the larger of the lyre types. (For further information, please consult the about page). I made sure to give myself several inches beyond an appropriate approximate length of 45 inches to work with before measuring and cutting.
After this, I needed to sand the bowl. The bowl I purchased is too thick. It is supposed to imitate a tortoise shell, so it needs to be at most 8-mm thick; whereas the bowl I purchased is at least a couple of centimeters. To thin it, I first sawed off all of the feet. My next step was to sand it down about a quarter of an inch. Cassidy recommended I use an angle grinder; the one I use is called a gilead . This is the start of my sanding process:
I have much more work to do, but my arms are complete, and my base is (hopefully) going to be finished soon!