Roughing the recurve in

After the purfling is in I start putting the recurve in. Carving a violin from the inside out gives you the correct long arch and a little less than half of the cross arches are correct. Some of the recurve can be done by eye...you know the big flat on the bottom can't be there and the bouts have to be lowered. But once it gets somewhat to size how do you get it the rest of the way? I use area tuning. I mentioned it before. If you're not up on it check out Keith Hill's website: http://www.instrumentmaking.keithhillharpsichords.com/areatuninghints.html

I tap the instrument with a dowel or pencil while damping the plates with something. At this point I'm really listening for the fundamental tone, I want it even through the whole plate. Not surprisingly the edges of the violin sound higher. I keep removing wood, a little at a time, and keep checking to see where the highest tones are. Those are the only spots I carve. With my set up I have the option of taking wood from the outside or the inside. I look at where I have to take the wood off and decide which side seems to need to go down. Some things to keep in mind. Curved areas will be higher in pitch, areas near an edge will be higher, and thicker areas will be higher. The point I'm at now is not quite even in pitch yet, but a lot better than it was. The area of the lower wing is still very high, but I'm going to leave it there for now. That's one area I don't want to be wimpy. I made my board up for assembling the neck, and tuning, and gluing the bass bar. I'll glue the belly and rib assembly on over the next couple of days (I'm off work!).