Journal
First public appearance. Dancing the sun up on May Morning
https://youtu.be/22o1pXuPlmg At Dawn on May Morning we took the Redwood Violin to Sebastopol to see the Apple Tree Morris Dance the sun up. Morris dance is an English folk dance tradition, usually danced with a team of six. The costumes, dances and dates for dancing...
Jon Berger Plays an Original Country Dance
https://youtu.be/bMjzJKXopMM Sebastopol fiddler Jon Berger composed this tune the style of an English Country Dance. He is joined here by Rebecca King on piano; Jon and Rebecca are two thirds of the band Persons of Quality. Jon’s wife Kalia Kliban, who made the pegs...
We Made the Cover of Strings Magazine!
Strings Magazine is an internationally distributed violin trade journal, covering anything to do with the violin family of instruments. This is so gratifying! Thanks to every one who has been involved, this has been far from a solo effort. You can get a digital...
Kalia Kliban turns pegs for the Redwood Violin
I talked with woodturner Kalia Kliban back in December about making some pegs for the violin. She had cleared some time in her schedule, done some research, made some jigs and tools and was now ready to turn the pegs. We visited her shop in late February to watch the...
Project update 6 – A salamander, a label, twisted tailgut and local press coverage
I'm having trouble knowing exactly what to report on. The videos covering the details of the various processes involved in making the violin are lagging so far behind what is currently going on in the workshop that I worry that there are many points in each video that...
The bass bar, scroll carving and tailgut making
Violinmaking https://youtu.be/wWPwLrSIqk0 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...
Refining the Plates. Finishing the glue. Marquetry?
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 work, with...
RV Project Launch, Roughing the plates, making glue
On Monday we put out the first Redwood Violin Project Newsletter and reached out on social media. This represented the official launch of the project. As an experienced violinmaker, making a good violin out out of local materials has alway seemed doable to me, but...
Strings for the Redwood Violin
The strings are the one part of the Redwood Violin that I am not planning to make myself. While it looks like a doable process it is quite involved and I simply dont have time at this point. A second reason is that modern synthetic strings sound different to...
Help Wanted – Machinist
Can anyone recommend a local machinist to make these metal parts?