Ground coat

A non-standard photo of my latest violin with couple of 'watered-down' coats of amber shellac for a ground. The varnish will be applied on top of this, the ground isolating the wood from the varnish.



The ground is a commercial shellac, available from hardward and builders supply stores -- Zinnser Bulls-eye, amber. It is 'watered down' with alcohol, in this case, 4 parts shellac to 1 part alcohol. Learned this from Michael Darnton. It's most likely not what was done in the old days, but it does have interesting properties, and the gold color is pleasing. I used it on my previous violin as well.

We have such great sun in Idaho, that I have not yet built a UV-box for varnishing. This time of year, however, we have clouds, wind, rain, snow, varying throughout the day, so I'm hanging the fiddle in the sunlight of our south-facing bedroom window. Pathetic UV, but better than nothing. The black rectangular areas on the back of this fiddle are actually shadows of tape used to plug holes in the screen. Also, our tender herbs, such as this lavender, are inside. Just outside the photo frame are oregano and rosemary. Perhaps the herb fragrance will help with the violin tone. :-)

Fitting linings.

Spent a little time this afternoon cutting lining stock out of a thin willow board, then here thinning it down with a plane to a bendable thickness, about 2 mm.



It's fun to see the curls coming out of the plane. I guess you could use them for a little doll's hair.

Below is one side of lining is glued into place, the other waiting for gluing. Clothespins reinforced with rubber bands make great lining clamps.



The linings do a couple of things. They help make the ribs a bit stiffer, with out filling the whole width. They also create a wider edge than just the rib itself, giving a better gluing platform for the back, in this case, or the top, on the other side.

Joining the back, bending the ribs.

Today I planed the center seam for the back for the Medieval fiddle. This is thin stock, birds-eye maple, straight off the shelf at the local Woodcraft store. I had visions of this being easier to join and the planing went well, but gluing was a bit tricker.



You can see the two pieces intended for the back, on top of a piece of birch plywood. This is just to give a little height to the back-stock, and I run the jointer plane along the bench on its side. As I got the edges near square, I really had to back off the plane. Those little birds-eyes just love to tear out.

Below is a pile of glued and clamped parts -- not the recommended way to store things, but space was at a premium today. Bent one side, cut it to length, and glued it in place today. Did a preliminary bend on the other side. This mould is too thin for these tall ribs, and may need some modification, such as adding several blocks around the perimeter. That or cut another out of thicker stuff.



Underneath is the joined back, held together by the horizontal clamps. The little anvil is a weight to help hold the two joined pieces flat. It was actually a little tricky gluing this thinner stock together, as opposed to the typical wedges in violin making; it wanted to buckle with the clamps, but didn't seem to have enough 'meat' for an unclamped rub-joint.

Thinning ribs

Finally back to a little building work today, on the Medieval Fiddle. I cut the rib stock to near width, then planed it down to a bendable thickness with a toothed plane to avoid tear-out in the birds-eye maple.



Below is a close up of the tool-marks left by the toothed-plane blade. Often this is scraped down to a smooth surface in a violin, but I am going to leave these -- they'll be on the inside of the fiddle and virtually invisible -- but I'll know they're there, and smile. It seems very organic, primitive, real.



The 'birds-eye' figure shows up as little dots here -- birds' eyes! A highly non-uniform grain.

Button and saddle

Here is the button after fitting the neck to the body, still square. The neck, too, is not finished, as the button will blend up into the heel into the neck. As is traditional, I have laid out the button with a compass. If you look close, you can see the center mark of the compass, something that also shows up in classical Italian violins.



Below is the button, and neck, mostly shaped. I like a large-sized button, this one being about 24 mm in diameter. It appears that the buttons were originally much larger than they are now, in part because each time the neck is replaced, a bit of wood is lost. Also, the classical Italian violins were Baroque instruments, which had bulkier necks. Most have been reshaped to more modern (ca 1800) standards. But this one is mine, so I can do whatever I want! :-)



The saddle is a small piece of ebony fit into the top of the instrument. It sits on the end block, and its purpose is to take the pressure of the tailgut. The tailgut holds the tailpiece, which holds the strings; on the other end, the tailgut loops around the endpin, which will fit into the small hole in the ribs. Without the ebony, the tailgut would crush the spruce top, and the tailpiece would contact the top.

A little Yule-time building.

After a couple weeks of much cello repair, I decided to take some time to push my own instruments along. Here I have squared up the neck and end blocks for the Medieval fiddle. I have spacers under the form to lift it to approximately the middle of the 40 mm ribs, which will be bent and added after the blocks are shaped. The blocks are lightly glued to the form, and in clamps here.



I spent the morning fitting the neck to the body of my current violin. Once I got it to the 'good enough' point, I decided to take lunch, then look at it again afterwards with fresher eyes. As I left, I turned back to the bench, saw the mess in the midst of the process, and thought it might be an interesting photo. On the white instrument, the neck is not glued in yet, but sitting in place, held by friction.



This afternoon, with the neck fit ok, I glued it in place. The heel of the neck is still square; that will be rounded and the neck finished after the glue has set -- perhaps tomorrow.

Design from nature

Violin design is based on simple components such as circles and lines. In this case, the f-hole can be derived from 2-dimensional surface of a 3-dimensional sphere. By carefully lifting the 'poles' from the orange, then unwinding the peel, the design of the f-hole is automatically revealed.



:-)