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.



:-)

Actually playing the fiddle...

... is something I do from time to time.

I do teach fiddle lessons in the shop, which gives me a good excuse to practice every so often. And we've had a couple of gigs in the past week to keep us busy. Last Sunday, our band, the Bru, played at a St. Andrews service for the First Congregational Church in Boise. It was a new experience for us, accompanying hymns as well as playing performance pieces. Seemed to go well, as they want us back next year.

Last night, Bill Elmer and I played for the preview of the opening of Alan Stanford's watercolor display at the State Historical Museum in Boise. Alan is a great painter, and had what looked like over 100 paintings hung on the walls in the Museum. Bill an Alan were best men at my wedding. (Photo by my lovely bride.)



We played whatever we felt like -- old-time tunes, Scottish, blues, folk. A nice evening.

The Bru's next gig is the Boise Contra Dance on December 19th. Rehearsal tonight!

Student instruments

Student instruments are always problematic. They can suffer a great deal of abuse, unintentional and otherwise. Makers of student instruments -- factories almost always -- in the best of situations have to make something quick, strong, and reasonable. In other cases, they produce outright junk, which can neither be played nor repaired. If you are buying a new violin for $100, for example, you are buying junk.

Parents want their kids to succeed, and they want to save money. When it comes to material goods, however, the parents often think of the cost alone. A child learning to play a musical instrument can be handicapped by an unplayable instrument. That is no value, just cost, even if it is minimal. Learning, however, is the important thing -- that is the value. Any thought of resale value, particularly in a student instrument, pales in comparison to how the child's brain can be developed.

Here is a fractional cello that came into the shop recently. The top had cracked near the tailpiece. I could recognize it as the result of the endblock shrinking -- a very common event on low-end instruments. Preventable with good quality control, but right now that is not important to these makers. They sell instruments easily, so why change?

This one retails for about $1200, not a small amount of money for most parents in this area. And it is not the 'bottom of the barrel' -- I can actually get the top off in a reasonable amount of time with a minimum of damage.

For comparison, though, I thought it might be interesting to show some of the inside details, that don't show up when looking at the shiny new instrument.

Here's the lower corner block on the bass side --



Notice how the block has been roughly split out, and that the c-bout linings, rather than running inside the block, actually stop far short of it. If the glue fails here, these will spring loose, creating quite a buzz.

To show that it's not a fluke, here's the lower treble-side corner block.



It has similar problems. Again, to be fair, these are made very quickly. Any extra time is spent on the outside, the part seen by the customer.

The endblock was just as rough. In this photo, you can see one split-out side, where the drill had been quickly pushed through, probably after the top was glued on. It had a similar fragment, hanging by a thin fiber, on the other side, which I had removed prior to this photo.



Note that the block is loose from the ribs. It is harder to see that the ribs themselves are split, radiating out from the end-pin hole. You can see a linen cleat that I have installed on one of the cracks. This type of damage happens when the cello is dropped on its endpin. A better block, however, might have held.

A bass-bar and family history

A follow-up on the November 10 post -- out with the old, and in with the new.



I glued the top on a couple days ago, and will install a spiral bushing in the A-peghole, which had been split and repaired sometime in the past, though not well.

Attaching the fingerboard

Before the final shaping of the neck, the fingerboard needs to be shaped and installed. The ebony blanks come basically fingerboard-shaped, but far too bulky. With a series of planes, gouges, and scrapers, I reduce some of the mass from underneath as well as from above.



Once the fingerboard is in reasonable shape, I layout its position on the neck and then glue a few locater studs, in this case 2 on each side. This makes it easier to put the fingerboard on in the right place when the slippery hide glue is on.



I glue it on firmly, not a simple tack, because it's going to stay on. I use the fingerboard to help align the neck while fitting, and leave it on while varnishing, as was done in the old days.