Time to get going

Well Christmas is past, and tomorrow is a new year. I went downstairs last night and figured out what I'm using for this high arched violin. Some big leaf for the back, nothing fancy, but I like the curled grain lines and have never carved big leaf before (have one glued up for the Plowden) and a even grained Sitka for the belly. The fittings will all be Yucatan rosewood. I have two other instruments started, but they stalled out last year, and I'm going to jump start building with this Guadagnini violin and I want to keep track of the time. The stock is big enough for a viola, but I have the plans fresh in my head, and a fingerboard roughed out (1 hour to saw, plane, and shape, 1 hour to smooth, undercut and polish, for that I just burnished it with my fingernails, worked pretty good.)

So I have 2 hours into it. I'd like to do 2-3 hours a day, and some on the weekend. The only way I'll do it is to just do it. Todays plan is to cut up stock off my turning square to make a tailpiece and the pegs and button (I always forget to turn it, because the head is different). Then it's just a matter of turning the pegs, and finishing the tailpiece to size. Once I get that stuff done (they're usually bought) I'll work on sawing and squaring up the neck block, cutting ribstock, jointing and gluing the back and belly up, and sawing out the mold.

Chips!

I've finally made some wood chips! I made some the other day when I was putting the taper on the pegs for the Titan the other day. I need to make another peg and a button to replace the geg I twisted and the button I forgot to make. So I decided when I do that I'll make up the pegs for this violin at the same time. Like I said before, I make all the fiitings, fingerboard too, out of the same chunk of wood. A 2" x 2" x 12" piece is big enough to do a violin. You need a piece slightly longer than a foot long to do a viola.

Before I make the pegs I have to rough out a fingerboard, and taipiece. The fingerboard is easy. Cut it out as a tapered rectangle, plane it square, round the top out, and put a scoop on the bottom. Minus the scoop, and with about 10 more minutes on the radius to get rid of flat spots and you have about an hour into it. The Yucatan rosewoood I'm using on this one made a fingerboard that right now, without the relief on the bottom, sounds a fifth higher than the ebony one next to it.

The plane blade is ground to a 42mm radius, and fits in the body that is under the fingerboard. I had to chisel out some more clearance for chips in the body. It works much better now. After I plane it with the long plane with the corrogated face underneath everything (my most useful plane, stays sharp and is rock solid, I made a chipbreaker for it that is 5.6mm thick), I run the radius plane on it to be sure the radius is right. When I get close, I just use the plane blade as a scraper, still sliding it on the long plane to keep it flat. If you use your plane this way, watch your fingers, you could slice them up. I've managed to avoid that, it's saws that get me.

I also cut out the pattern for the violin. I found a nice new "tool", spray adhesive. If you've ever tried to glue paper on to wood, you know how hard it is to get it smooth. The spray adhesive worked great. Glued on flat in seconds, and I started sawing right away. I saw it out leaving the line, and then file it until the line is all but gone. I've found it better to use my magnifying glasses on things like that. My progressives work great, but they just don't see up close like I used to. The magnifying visor works wonders. When I don't use them my work is no where's near the same quality.

So another 1/2 hour on planning, and finally an hour on the actual instrument.

New Project

I have a couple projects started. But then this year we've been working 6 and 7 days a week on my real job, and I've been writing my other blog http://kensdevotional.blogspot.com/ . I'm still writing the other blog, but I'm getting better at it, and will schedule my time to do that until no later than 11AM and then do violin stuff for the next 2-3 hours each day. I should be able to get something accomplished on violins that way.

The Guadagnini viola is further along, and the Plowden violin has hardly anything done. Everyone always asks how long it takes to make a violin, so I'm going to find out. First I'll get everything ready and see how long that takes. Truing up the wood, glueing, the form, the ribs, the neck block, linings, purfling, blocks, pegs, fingerboard, tailpiece, all that stuff. A lot of those things luthiers normally buy finished, or roughed in, but I like to have the fittings match, and make them up myself. Certainly not prudent from a cost prospective, but I think it looks cool.


I think even a 17th century maker would have contracted out some of that work, like the pegs, and maybe the fingerboard and tailpiece. A larger shop might have had apprentices that would make up the rib stock, square up stock, rough in the neck, and maybe even get the front and backs book matched and glued up. Having all the stuff ready makes it faster once you get everything ready to glue up.

I drew up a plan for a Guadagnini violin. Actually it's two violins. I want one small one (352mm) with a high arch (18.7), and one longer one (357) with a low arch (16). I drew up the plan to make it bigger on the belly than the top. That's what Guadagnini did, and I think it makes cool looking ribs. So I need a full pattern, one half front, and one half back, instead of a half pattern. I took it up to the office supply place and had it copied 100% and 101.5%. I'll glue them on to thin plywood and cut it out as my pattern. From that I can make up molds. I drill two holes on the centerline, somewhere in the upper and lower bouts, and then I use drill bits to positively locate the pattern, then I can mark the outline of the corners on each side when the blocks are on. Works great.


I'm wondering. What would be the differences in tone between them? I'm only going to build the small one for the test, so I won't know until one day I decide to build both, side by side. They have slightly different f holes (drawn up from two different Guadagnini instruments, the Maazel and the Lachmann Schwechter). The high arch one has shorter, more angled holes. The other is straighter and slightly longer. Both should give a stop at around 195mm. The high arch one comes out with about a 157 degree string angle with a 25mm projection. The low arch one can get around 158 degrees with 26.5 projection. I like doing the geometry stuff (yeah, I'm slightly crazy) but it's probably easier to just do it, and not worry about actual numbers. So the low one would have more bridge fulcrum, and possibly more power? Then again the high arch would be stronger, so maybe the rest can be "flimsier" so the sound "shimmers" off of it? I don't know. It's like a dome, or cone tweeter, which one is better?


Oh, time wise the drawing is maybe 2 hours. The thinking behind it maybe a few days. If I make sure I document everything though (neck set, arch height, saddle height, tailpeice length, tap tones, weights, thicknessing, everything), I won't have to go back over it again.

If.