I'm still here...somewhere

It's been a while since I did anything on the violin. Been busy. A guy at work took my Montagnana model home last weekend and had a friend who plays check it out. She thought it played nice and sounded as good as the $3-4,000 violins at a local string shop. That's good news. The photo is the Montagnana. The color looks about right on the photo, but it isn't very clear. Another photo was more clear, but it used a flash and the color and look was to nasty for me. I still don't understand why cameras don't see things the way we do. This weekend I gave him the Ole Bull copy for a little feedback. He had it the other night and told me that he thinks it has a nice rich tone, but the varnish is still sticky. Yikes! I varnished it in January! I agree it is my best violin as far as sound goes, but sticky varnish.... I'll have to address that issue. Thanks for being honest Jeremy.
I've discovered the main reason I like making violins. It could be that I like to work with my hands. True. It could be that I like to figure out stuff, and even throw in some trig for fun. True. It could be that I like the sculpture, art, athestics part of it. True. It could be the search for better sound, and to improve my craftsmanship too. True. Are any of these the main reason. I thought so, but they're not. The main reason is that it is the one thing that I do that no one makes me, wants me, expects me to do. It is basically a WANT of me. Everyone has wants. Everyone has needs. I don't have too many needs, well they are all taken care of, so I don't even think about them. Thanks God. But wants...didn't think I wanted anything. There are things I'd like, but nothing that I want. Or so it seemed. But I think I want the time alone, turning pieces of wood into a musical instrument.I like listening to my mp3 player while working on it, singing along. Following a plan I decided on, and I figured out, and I have control over. Sounds like I like being in charge of it all. I usually don't take charge of anything. Kind of strange, and a little too deep for this time of night. I'll let it go at that.

A little diversion

I have a viola started with a back out of a nice slab of curly cherry. Cherry isn't exactly violin wood, I've heard of cellos made out of it, but violas come in different sizes and shapes so maybe I can get away with it. I tried bending some violin bellies after buying a sitka spruce board that has killer bearclaw. The problem is run-out. Run-out? What's that? When a board is perfectly quartersawn the grain goes perfectly perpendicular to the faces. This board is out about 10 degrees. But since the thickness is 12mm I can plane both sides at an angle to get it down to 5mm thickness and then bend them. The other 2 I tried I didn't have a good steamer to steam them in. I've been looking at garage sales for some kind of pan about 18" x 6" x 5" or so deep, that has a top. No luck so far.

Anyway I started planing one of these half's the other day and noticed that the tap tone, which started out about the same as the thick one dropped in pitch. That was to be expected. But what surprised me was that the pitch rose even higher than the thick one when I planed the other side at an angle. Now it is about7mm thick (still needs more planing) and is more than a 5th higher in pitch than the thick one, and rings clear at that, where the other one sounds stifled. It seems that quartered wood is better all around. The photo (I shot more, they were all bad) doesn't show the bearclaw as much as it is. Now I need to find a steamer.

My rib bending set up

Some people use special made rib bending irons. Some people make their own. The people who make their own are probably trying to save the $100 plus for the store bought one. Guess what I did. How'd you guess? The store bought, and some of the homemade use electric heaters of some kind (I know nothing about electricity) to heat up the aluminum chunk that is milled in a shape like a c bout. I didn't know anything about those things so I used what I had...a paint stripping heat gun. Took some 2 X 4'x and made a stand just big enough for the heat gun to be right under the aluminum. It gets pretty hot, but it seems to cool off fast. I can't keep the heat gun on because the gun is a bigger diameter than the block, so the wood chars. It takes a good 10 minutes or so to get really hot. My shape is not ideal. I made it up from a pattern I had when I first started. Turns out the pattern wasn't very good! Maybe some day I'll by a real one. Or maybe I'll make a new aluminum lug and electrify it. I wouldn't need the height if it was electric, so it would be more stable. I also could put some insulation between the block and the stand to keep the stand from charring as well. It's just charring, not burning. Sure it is. I used it the other day on the cbout ribs. Didn't go too bad. At least nothing snapped! I glued them on using the old school method. You need dowels and string. It was described in a fairly recent Strad magazine article. I'll show it when I glue some other ribs on.

The back outside roughed in

This is the back all roughed in. Took the photo last night about 8:30 so it is pretty blue. Just like a fluorescent light it doesn't look blue unless you look right at it, the, back didn't look blue sitting on the table, only the photo does. Why aren't cameras as good as eyes are? Oops, I deleted the photo by mistake. I'll have to take another later. Just took the photo today, Monday, at 6pm. Still looks blue. Cameras are strange. It doesn't have film, so why not show it as is?

I used my 1" Japanese gouge to cut most of the arching on the back again. Then I use the 2" Flexcut as a scraper to smooth things out. My curved scraper around the edge finishes it up. Before smoothing the shape looks really cool. The combination of almond shaped divots and the flame makes it look like waves on the ocean. Cool, but very hard to really see the shape. Like the belly, the shape is generated from the inside arch. Unlike the belly, the arching is not a copy of the inside arch. The thickness pattern produces a long arch that is a circle. The thicknesses I have now are about 20% thick. I think the maple I have is not as strong as the other woods I've used so I'll start a little thick, you can always take stock off. I have 5.2mm at the narrow point of the c bout, <4mm in the upper bouts and <3mm in the lower bouts. As on the belly the archings follow the inside arch a little less than half way across and then I just blend them out to the 4mm edge. Once the outline is finalized I can blend the recurve in.

About the outline...it's about time I got one. Rib bending is in my future.

Moving along on the belly

Before I get to the belly I want to show the long arch on the inside of the back. A few posts back I showed the inside of the belly and you can see that the back long arch is not nearly as deep and it doesn't rise so fast off the blocks. Also the point where the chain hits the wood is higher up on the back than the same point on the belly. That point can be changed depending on where the maker decided the thickest point on the back should be. Some, like this one are above the center. Others are lower, but still above center. The latest Strad poster, a beautiful 1736 del Gesu, has the thickest point well below center. First one I've seen like that.


Now here is the belly. I've gone about as far as I can on it until I make the ribs up and mark the outline on the plates and cut them out to size. Then I can put the purfling in and the ff holes. At that point I can finish the arching up. Right now the central area between the blocks and about half of the width is 3mm thick. The edge is around 4mm. In between those points the gouge (my 2" wide #3 Flexcut) just kinda blends it in. This area is still quite thick, because I won't finish the inside of this area until later.

I saw a Chevy Volt in the parking lot at Home Depot today. After parking I went to check it out. It's a nice looking car. The battery pack location puts a big hump in the middle of the car, but makes the inside look like a Lotus Esprit. Even has buckets in the back. What cracked me up was the humor of the engineers...you could see three red 5 gallon gas cans through the hatch window.

A day trip

I worked on the outside of the belly the last couple of days thinning it out, but I'll post about that later. Today my wife and I took a little day trip. That's where this picture was taken. Not much of a clue is it. The next photo shows the location, but the first picture is still cryptic, and kind of cool.
The top photo is a shot straight down into the St. Clair river, right at the bottom of Lake Huron. Though you can't see it in the photo there are hundreds of little fish swimming frantically against the current that is about 7.5mph. Just a few feet from that photo there were no fish to be found. And as we got closer to the bridge, and the base of Lake Huron there were even more fish. Why? Why would the fish go to the place where the current is the strongest? Food. I don't know this for sure, but all the water from 3 great lakes is dumping into this small space. It's bound to be loaded in nutrients. Besides having the current, the waves are very choppy. Twenty foot boats look like they're about to flip over and even huge boats with flying bridges "slap" the water. The fish go there because the rewards are the greatest. The going is hard, and I imagine the predator fish know they are there too, so the risk is great. Do you do this in your life? Do you want to do this in your life? Maybe you don't, but God put you there anyway! The choppy, rough sailing is the place God knows you will learn the most. Let the learning go to your heart and let the feeding frenzy begin. If you don't reach for his food and wisdom, and try to do it alone, you will only tire out before the reward is reached. But by jumping in and swimming upstream with your eyes only on the goal, and not the obstacles, totally sure of your success, you will obtain it.