Scroll

I worked on the scroll. It just needs a little touching up, and the fluting around the outside. I'll do that before I varnish. Then I'll have fresh eyes.

You know what fresh eyes are, don't you? When you are doing something, and it goes along, it seems like it is done. But when you look at it later you see glaring things that need to be addressed. When I write posts for my other blog, I read them over when they get posted (I'm about 2 weeks up) to check for errors and broken links. I find them. Spell check may get most, but it doesn't check grammar, and just plain weird wording. So if you let it sit around and do something else, and then go back to it, the results should be better. Anyway, here it is as of today:

I took four hours to cut it out (the front radius was done), chop out the turns, and smooth it all up. Most of the time is in getting the lines to be smooth and even. The roughing and undercutting are the easy part. I finally figured out how to get the eye done so it looks right. At least I think it looks right.

I used 4 chisels, the two at the right mainly, and the kinfe to mark the eye out for the small chisel. The one with the short blade is from Japan Woodworker, and is actually a gouge, the inside is dished, and works really well. I might dish in the skinny one next to it. I use it for the last tight turn. The radius inside might help. I bought the two with the long tangs at a garage sale. The steel is easy to sharpen and gets quite sharp. I've found if the steel gets a wire edge easy it gets really sharp. These ones also stay that way longer. That's the kicker. They're a brand called Fuller. I think they're older than the Stanley I put a new handle on at the left. Someone beat on them pretty good over the ages.

I found that leaving the neck square works good. I could keep the saw square when cutting out the turns, and it worked good for cutting out the eye and keeping the turns fairly square. I know many scrolls aren't too square, but I like them square (this is the first one I've actually got right) and with deep undercutting. Without the undercutting they don't look finished to me.

No, I really need to get going

I haven't done much on the violin. I have everything planned out. I know exactly how I want it. I have the pegs halfway done, but kept breaking one fake ivory collar, and made two for the last violin. I think I'd rather do those things up in batches of 12 or more, do it production line and be done with it. So I have a fingerboard, minus the radius on the underside, the pegs, and the tailpiece roughed out. 2 hours for the pegs, and 2 for the fingerboard.

It's cold in the basement, and for some reason my fingers turn white and numb. So I don't like spending a lot of time down there. That's why I've been figuring. I do figuring real well. It's easy to figure. And the more you do it, the more you should be ready to know what you're doing. At least that's what I figure.

The other day I cut out my neck block. It wasn't perfectly set on the stock. I lined it up square with the medularies and sawed it out, and planed it square (well retangular) just like it says in the Johnson and Courtnall book. That took an hour to saw and half an hour to plane. I need a new sawblade. I like my little (model making saw they call it) ryoba that doesn't have the replaceable blade. It seems to be extremely sharp, and stays that way. The last replaceable one I have on now never did seem sharp, or hard. I'll pick the next one up right from the Woodcraft store so I can check for the blue edges. This one hardly has any (ah, quality control?).

Today I sawed, rasped and smoothed up the top cuts on the neck, the top of the pegbox and the front of the scroll. I read on maestronet that Melvin Goldsmith cuts the slot for the strings out before anything else (the mortice he called it). Melvin is one of the many well known (for good reason) luthiers on maestronet and I figured it was worth a try. He said, iirc, that he could finish one up in 15 minutes, and then go on to the rest. It took me 30 minutes. I put the holes back quite a ways. Michael Darnton, another maestronet guru, says he puts top hole back as far as he dares. I may have dared too much. I did get it relieved around the hole, and I can go deeper if need be, but putting the string in will be a bear. Reminds me of a photo of a Jaguar with the skinny hood, and the double overhead cam six jammed in every last square inch of space. Cool to look at, but maintanence? At least the plugs are on the top! I don't think it's too far back, where I might get it in the mail one day with a note from a shop saying, "You think it looks cool? You change the string hot shot."