It's not exactly "paint" that's drying. I'm hoping to get this off in a few quick minutes while I'm waiting for the hide glue to dry on my violin sides or "ribs" as they are known in the business. After two weeks of intense bookkeeping and tax preparations for my landscaping business I'm officially back in violin making mode. I intend to spend the next six weeks in this gear before spring landscaping work resumes. With any luck I'll have a fiddle completed and another on the way. We'll see.
So today I'm gluing the ribs onto the blocks and hope to start working on the neck and scroll while waiting for more glue to dry. What are the blocks? And what about all the other stuff between "I think I'll build a violin" and gluing pork tenderloins to a child's toy? Well that's the problem you see. All that other stuff is so yesterday and I'm so over that. If you really want to know how to build a violin go buy three books, a four DVD instructional course, visit dozens and dozens of web sites, read just as many on line articles and then call me. Because that's what I did in 2009 and I still don't know what I'm doing. Seriously, this blog can't be a detailed tutorial because (A.)I don't have that much time. (B.) You really need to read that much and literally watch someone step by step and (C.) In case you haven't noticed it yet, and in spite of my disclaimers in Genesis 1, this blog isn't really about violins but rather an excuse for me to VENT!
Leaving aside all venting, sermonizing, philosophising and demonizing (see Limbaugh in Genesis 1 & 2) for the moment, as my good friend Deane would say "Let me give you the two minute summary" of violin making if that is possible. (By the way, Deane's two minute movie review is always at least ten minutes, but a ten minutes well spent I must say.) Okay, very briefly think of a violin in this manner. Top, bottom, sides, skinny neck, peg box with curly cue scroll, strings and bow. Now immediately eliminate strings and bow because I'm buying those. Lets start with the body (top, bottom and sides) first.
The violin body consists of a carved piece of very fine, and preferably well aged spruce (top), a carved well figured (flamed) piece of maple (bottom), connected together by six wafer thin curved side pieces of maple. Since the sides join the top and bottom together, you start with them.
Very important observation # 1. The sides are only 1 millimeter thick. (1/32"). They would collapse without support along the way. Therefore they are glued to six "blocks" not so big either. These blocks need a little help staying put themselves. Hence the "mold" (pictured at top). The six small blocks are temporarily glued to a violin shaped piece of plywood with lots of holes in it (to facilitate clamping). The wafer thin sides are glued to the blocks only. They are reinforced internally with an even lighter material. The bottom piece after it is carved (arched and scooped out) is glued to the sides, blocks and linings. The mold is removed and the top (after it is arched, scooped out, fitted with a sound bar (long thin piece of wood glued underneath) is glued to the reverse side of blocks, sides and lining. Add a couple funny looking f holes and a very fine sliver of purfling around the top edge and presto, you're done with the body. One hundred hours later.
Very important observation # 2. The neck, peg box and scroll are made from a single block of maple. No gluing allowed here. You start with a 15" by 2" by 1.5" piece of maple that weighs about three pounds and you proceed to eliminate about ninety nine percent of it. Very slowly; remember we are talking about rock hard maple. With any luck thirty hours later you're done with that. Attach it to the body, add a finger board (ebony), four pegs, four strings (at $25-$50 a pop), a bridge, a chin rest and a nice bow ($2000+). But wait we're not done yet. Did I fail to mention that every molecule on this rubrics cube twenty times over gets fifty coats of varnish. Okay I exaggerated a little. Try sixteen! Now you're done. Deane, was that a Bill two minute version or yours?
In Genesis 4 I'll hopefully show you where I am along this trail. But until then you might try your hand at something a little easier, like 18 holes of golf!
Bill
100 hours. I guess that is a little over two weeks in a 40 hour work week. I can't imagine spending that kind of time on such a complicated project. And although I don't completely understand the process, I understand a lot more than I did. I am eagar to see how it all turns out.
ReplyDeleteMy friend, violinmaker Sam Compton, came to the conclusion that one of the Stradivarius secrets was to mold the top plate without carving it -- that carving it separates wood fibers and inhibits their structural and musical integrity. He died before "proving" his point, but he had carried the top plate he was making for my (now never to be finished) violin to several conferences and lectured on his idea.
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