Violinmaking A summary of this week’s work: accounts of fitting the bass bar, finishing the ribs and carving the scroll. There’s also a bonus lecture on practical violin acoustics The bass bar is a little supporting strut running the length of the violin,...
This week I continued work on the plates, the back and top of the violin. The Redwood top The redwood is very light. I measured the specific gravity (density compared to that of water) at 0.27 which, compared to the 0.37 – 0.40 of the spruce that I normally...
I’ve finally got started on making the Redwood Violin. At last I’m going to start to find out how my substitute materials will work. Comparing woods On the ribs (sides) I get to use three of the woods that I’ve collected. The applewood planes and...
I normally get the wood for my violins in billets from Europe, pre-sawn to sizes that are easily digestible by a violinmaker. For that reason I’ve never bothered to acquire the machines that most modern wood shops have. The applewood came in a nice five by two...
A set of conventional wood to build a violin.The billets are cut to accommodate (left to right) a neck and scroll, sides, a top, a back. I normally buy the wood that I need for the back, top, sides and neck of the violin from specialist violin suppliers in Europe. The...
