Into this neck of the wood.

A little progress on the scroll.  Cut out on the band saw.  Mostl of the initial shaping done with rasp and gouge.  Drilled the string holes.

Roughing out the interior of the pegbox.  This goes fairly quick, but it is a work-out.  I still need to clean up the edges.  Lots of curl in this wood, which means it's very easy to get tear-out where you don't want it - which means I have to resharpen tools before finishing up.  But another day, I need to get back to repair work.

Following, or trying to follow, a scheme by Joseph Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert for the Brothers Amati Scroll (Strad magazine, March 2006).  I'm not sure that I am interpreting the transition from flat paper to curved surface correctly, but am plunging onward.

A bit of work to cut out the sides of the pegbox and the first turn in the scroll.  This highly figured wood really likes to tear out -- lots of work with the rasp!

Squaring a neck.

I was squaring up a block for the neck this morning before breakfast, just getting a little done while waiting for the rest of the house to get going. This was a rather plain looking block, didn't cost all that much, and didn't seem to nice -- but after removing a little wood, it had quite a nice sheen to it, as well as some nice figure.

Don't know if it will match the back I have for this one, which I think is rather plain, but the ribs are flamed, so a mongrel it will be.

The back and scroll of "sweeping up."

Here's the back of the "1870 Albani Guarnerius", which I think is really nice. It is a little more amber-colored in real life than it is on my computer screen (here), but the flame is lively, something hard to see in a still photo.

Here's the scroll of the "1870 Albani Guarnerius", which shows fine blacking on the chamfer and charming character throughout. The peg-holes have been roughly treated before, and there is a crack off the e-peg-hole. Bushings to be fit! The fingerboard was also glued on off-set, so will have to be reglued or replaced.

Quickly hewed pegbox

In the shop today, I was setting-up a ca. 1900 factory fiddle, with the usual integral bass-bar and no corner blocks, for a customer. While fitting pegs, I noticed this one had quite a rough gouged bottom to its pegbox as well.

Here's a closer view, at slightly different lighting.

Thought it was an interesting comparison to a more recent factory fiddle with its milled pegbox. Quick work with a gouge vs. quick work with a milling machine.

The blog post on this milled pegbox is here.

Milled pegbox

MIlling marks inside an early- to mid-20th century factory violin. Usually these are eliminated in the finishing process, to give a more hand-made effect.