How Long Does It Take

I'm always asked how long it takes to make a violin. I don't know. It doesn't take as long as you would think. I'm getting faster, but I never kept track of time; it's a lot of bother, and I'm not trying to figure out how much an hour I'm making on them.

The violin I'm making for the VSA was going along fine. Then the back curled up on the ends like a potato chip! The wood had crazy grain, and I was using water on it to make the planing easier. I tried to flatten it out by getting it wet and clamping it to a board. That didn't work. The next day I took it off. It looked somewhat better, but flexing it I heard popping noises; it was pulling away at the center seam, I ended up with a 2 mm wide gap on the bottom third of it.

I split it and re-joined it. I glued it up. Both of those were not easy to do. Then I noticed that the button was about 2 mm off center, and naturally it was off on the side that was cut about 3 mm closer to the centerline. I can't use it for this; maybe for something else, but not for a competition. The new one I made has a lower arch, and a higher tap tone, so maybe it was the one I was meant to use.

Our grandkids, and daughter, and son in law were coming up, so I knew I wouldn't have time to work on it. I had another back glued up, and started on it. I kept track of time and I got it down to the same weight (130g) as the other was when it conked out on me in 9 hours. In 3 more hours I had it ready to clean up the outline, and put in the purfling groove. So 12 hours to get it semi-finished and at 112 grams. Is that a decent time? I don't know.

Today I wanted to get the groves in. I haven't made the fixture for the rotary tool yet (I need to get an 18 mm tap), so it is a job for a marker and a knife. I used my magnifier, and it made a big difference. I don't see anything that looks terrible, I'll know more when I get the purfling glued in. I found a thin flat file that works well for flattening and trimming the groove to size. It took 2 hours a plate to get them done. Is that a decent time? I don't know.

I do know that 4 hours of knife time gets my hands sore!