Jim Brown, Violinmaker in Claremont, California.

Jim Brown is the organizer of the Southern California Violin Makers Workshop, which is taught by Michael Darnton.  Jim is the fellow who puts everything together, and is even the fellow who picks us students up as we come in to the airport, one-by-one, scattered throughout the day.

Here's a nice 8-minute video on Jim and his own shop.

Breathing Life.


And one of my photos of Jim giving a varnish demo at the 2008 workshop.

Michael Darnton (violin maker) in the News

I've attended the Southern California Violin Makers Workshop every June since 2008.  Although the workshop runs for 3 weeks each June, I can only attend for one, occasionally two weeks, each year.  I have a frequent conflict with the last week of the workshop as it coincides with the National Old Time Fiddlers Contest in Weiser, Idaho, where we set up shop to tend to instruments and sell a few.

Michael Darnton teaches the Violin Makers Workshop.  He's a careful teacher, precise, and probably gets tired of telling me the same thing repeatedly.  Eventually, however, I do learn something, so on to the next feature of making.  It's also a great opportunity to meet with other makers, see their instruments, and occasionally see some really fine, old Italian fiddles.

Michael was featured recently in his local (Chicago) newspaper.  Here's a video clip from that interview  (newspaper as in the 21st century sense).

Violin-maker demonstrates his handmade process.

And here is a link to a scanned pdf of the print version.

Endeavor of guesswork.

It's really great for me to see Michael in action, hear his voice, be reminded of this or that part of making.

I also have my own photos from the workshop, links on the year.

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Southern California Violin Makers Workshop 2012

June is typically a busy month for me.  Since 2008, I have been attending the Southern California Violin Makers Workshop for a week, sometimes 2, and then during the third full-week in June, we have the shop set up at the National Old-time Fiddlers Contest in Weiser, Idaho.

So today I'll post about the workshop.  It's held in Claremont, California, put on by Jim Brown, and taught/led by Michael Darnton of Chicago.  The grounds are not too bad.

The violin-makers workshop was held on the ground-floor in this wing of the building --

while the bow-makers were across the way in this wing, behind the arched walkway --

Most of the attendees had been to the workshop before, and all (in the first two weeks) had built previous violins.  Everyone was at a different place in their current violin and the atmosphere is such that we can ask questions about anything at any time.  We all just set down at a bench and start working.  Seeing what other people are doing, how they're doing it, the tools they're using are all wonderful ways of learning.

For me the greatest thing is that I learn so much I didn't even know to ask about.

One of my goals this time was to learn more about the outline and corners.  I believe I made a major conceptual breakthrough in my understanding of corner geometry.  I was never happy with the shape of  my violin corners, mainly because I didn't have a clear picture in my head.  Now, after years of having it presented to me, something finally clicked.  It's now a matter of execution.

Towards the end of my week there, I got the purfling in both plates of my Brothers Amati fiddle.

And I spent some time working the edges down.

The workshop's official site is here.  If I understand it correctly, the workshop is accepting beginners during the third week.

I have more photos of the workshop here.

Michael Darnton's website is here.

Gluing the top on; Jackson-Sloan Stradivari

Following advice of Oded Kishony, I'm going to fit the neck to the body before gluing the back to the ribs. To glue the top to the ribs, though, I need to get the form out. I trimmed the linings last night, and this morning I took out the form. It appears to be a problem, but just split the corner blocks on the diagonal, knock the end and neck blocks loose, and you can spread the ribs taking the form out.

A word about the chisel with the plastic handle. It's cheap. I bought it over 30 years ago when I was doing carpenter work and carried it about in my leather work-apron. In my violin work, I find it pretty handy for scraping old hide glue and other destructive tasks. It takes a quick edge, though it doesn't last, and is the right size for splitting out blocks.

After the form is out, I trim the blocks to their final shape.



Here's the top glued to the ribs. Next step is to finish up the neck, then fit it.



With the glue hot, I decided to add the label to the back. Here it reads: Inspired by Antonio Stradivari 1714 "Jackson-Sloan" Nampa 2010. Inspired here really means in the more artistic sense, and certainly not a copy.



This past June, at the Southern California Violin-Makers Workshop, I got to play the 1714 "Jackson" Strad, as well as a 1742 Guarneri del Gesu, both owned by Doc Bill Sloan. A tremendous experience, I was particularly taken by the Strad. I was also surprised by its appearance, being much higher arched than I would have expected out of a Stradivari. We were able to really look over these instruments, and estimated the Strad top arch at 18 mm, and what appeared to me to be very steep arching. The e-string on this Strad was simply amazing. Anyway, I tried to follow a similar arching concept, without having anything like arching diagrams, just my memory. Hence, "inspired by."

After the workshop, after Weiser, back to reality...

Finally catching up on sleep after 3 weeks of long, but good, hours.

The Southern California Violin Makers Workshop was terrific, as usual. I spent 2 weeks there, at the campus of Pomona College in Claremont, California. Basically a fantasy world for violin makers. One of the high points for me was that I was able to play a 1714 Stradivari violin and a 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin, one after the other. Of the two, the Strad was my favorite. I generally hate my tone on the e-string, but on this Strad, I liked it. People use the word 'silvery' or 'shimmering' to describe these Strad e-strings, and it always sounded a bit overblown to me. I was wrong. There really is something there, hard to describe.

In addition to those two, one of the bow-maker students brought his 1733 Bergonzi violin, another classic Cremonese instrument. He has owned it for 61 years, and according Michael Darnton, it was in amazing shape. Lots of varnish, excellent edges, well-tended after.

But the most important part of the workshop is that many of us have become good friends. We share a common interest, and enjoy learning from each other. Michael Darnton is an excellent teacher, with a tremendous amount of knowledge. I spent most of the time experimenting with edgework, though I did get my two plates in fairly decent shape by the end. You can compare these to their state in my previous post, "pre-workshop rush!"

It's hard to pick among the photos I took, but if you want to see more, please go to my flickr set here The grounds of the campus are beautiful as well.

After two weeks at the workshop, I flew home, loaded up the shop, and took it up to the National Old-time Fiddlers' Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Again as usual, Phil (my bow-maker friend) and I had a great time with wonderful folks. Plenty of good fiddlers played my two fiddles, making them sound pretty, and giving me good feedback. I hope to have several more to offer at next year's contest.

Now, back to work.

pre-workshop rush!

An end-of-the-day shot. I'm frantically trying to get stuff in shape for the workshop, which starts Monday. Leveling up the rib garland. Adding wings to the block of maple that will be the neck, pegbox, and scroll -- they're just to be able to get it to a square shape and will eventually be cut away. My front and back, I'm planing across grain to flatten. The back is co-operating, but the top has a bit of a twist to it. I have a short block plane and a long joiner plane -- really need to get a decent mid-sized plane for this particular job.

I also need to organize some of my tools, so I can ship some tomorrow to the workshop, those that I won't need for a couple days. They will probably arrive mid-week.

In additon, I have someone coming by tonight to drop off a bow that needs to be rehaired by tomorrow noon. Contest going on that day, and they noticed that the hair was a bit thin.

First post

This is my first post on a new blog. Just trying to understand the mechanics here.

Eventually to be linked to my web-page, which I have recently revised and am also in the process of learning how to update & modify. Owyhee Mountain Fiddle Shop

The photo in this post is of work I did at the Southern California Violin Makers Workshop this past June. This photo, others of the workshop, as well as even more photos of violins and violin-making live on my Flickr page, here .