make a violin

I don’t know how to play violin, but I want to learn. I am currently learning to play banjo and the thing I regret the most about it is not feeling confident when working on it/fixing it. I have heard that when it comes to building stringed instruments, the violin is one of the easier to make. I bought a kit from Stewart MacDonald and plan to work on it in my spare time.

I am a violinist in my towns orchestra and I think it would be awesome to turn up to rehersals with an instrument that I made.

this would be a fun thing to do

With a final burst of activity I made a rosewood nut for the fingerboard, and when the glue was dry I fitted up the instrument and its was ready to play!

Check out my blog where you can see a link to the YouTube video of me playing it :-)

http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/pochette-part-ten-finished-at-last/

I guess I can cross this one off my list – until I make another one that is! Good luck with yours :-)

Cheers
Jerry

With the body shaping almost complete I realised I was missing a key ingredient – spool clamps to hold it together for glueing. I could have bought some, but chose to make them to save time and money. Here’s how: I bought a pack of ten 75mm x 3/16” bolts, a pack of washers to fit and a pack of wing nuts. I had an old broom handle, so I clamped a stop to my mitre saw and cut 20 rounds about one centimetre thick. Then I drilled a 3/16” hole in the centre of each round and fitted each bolt in sequence with a washer, two rounds, then another washer and finally the wing-nut. Total price for ten clamps was about AUS$7.50 for the ten clamps (about US$5.00). You can follow progress on this on my blog:
http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/pochette-part-eight-peg-holes-and-fiddle-clamps/

I have now cut the dovetail for the neck and it seems to fit okay, and I have done more work on shaping and thinning the top and back. I am considering whether to varnish the top before final glueing as it would mean I wouldn’t have to remove the fingerboard from the neck.
I have also shaped the end blocks to reduce weight and also to be able to drill the hole for the button and for a screw to locate and seat the neck properly.

Cheers
Jerry

I have been making more progress on making the pochette – it’s crude but I’m learning a lot.

I have begun shaping the top and back and now have the basic shape but it still needs a bit of work yet.

To gain an impression of how the finished thing might look I’ve just placed everything together for now – the real assembly will come later.

You can follow my progress on http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/

Cheers
Jerry

Once the glue had dried I removed all the peg clamps and used a pencil to draw around the outside of the ribs onto the material for the back.

By keeping the pencil flat to the ribs this means that the line would allow a little overlap beyond the ribs – this will help to protect the ribs from knocks when the fiddle is assembled.

After cutting out the shape roughly with the hobby bandsaw I set it in the vise and positioned the hollow rib frame over the board. Again using a pencil I roughly outlined a dish shape inboard of the blocks and leaving a little margin for the edges so that there would remain a flat lip for gluing the back to the ribs.

I gently scalloped the dish out with the Arbortech Woodcarver blade mounted in a standard Ryobi angle grinder. And I mean gentle!

Then a bit of leveling with hand chisels and finally dressing with a curved scraper. This latter is a wonderful tool that gives great feedback and you can scrape along or across the grain with impunity.

By the end of the evening I had the first phase of the back almost done. The next thing will be to thickness it down a little and then shape the convex surface close to the interior contour. The wood already has a ring to it – it’s amazing how you can hear the acoustic properties change as the scraper is drawn along the timber.

You can follow my progress on:
http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/

I decided to start with a pochette or travel fiddle, and have been blogging my progress.

I now have the ribs formed and glued to the end-blocks and the reinforcing strips glued to the ribs, making a surprisingly strong and lightweight structure. As you can see I still need to shape the end blocks. This week I hope to cut out the top and back and begin shaping the arching.

You can follow my progress on:
http://fourstrings.wordpress.com/
and search for ‘pochette’

Here is a picture of the fiddle so far – with teh reinforcing strips clamped and drying

and I accepted. So, I will be shipping some starter tools on shaping the wood and stuff, while attempting to play again, after I move to Anchorage, AK. It’s just the basics, like chisels, clamps, sandpaper, patterns, and an unfinished piece. This is going to be fun.