Making a Violin II - Matt

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Got the top cut out:

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Top roughed out. I went with a thinner rough edge thickness this time, 5mm and 5.5mm in the c-bouts & corners:

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Doing something different this time. I finished the edge thickness and outline, but will try purfling the top before doing the final arching. This way I'm not finishing the arching, purfling, blending the channel & finishing up the arching again, I'm just purfling & finishing the arching/channel all at once. I'm also sizing the area around the purfling with glue to make the spruce harder so it takes a knife better. I'm not sure if I used enough glue or whether it was too thin/thick, though:

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I spent most of the afternoon trying to burn some CD's so I can listen to them in my workshop, so all I managed to do was score the purfling groove and attemp to add 'beestings' to the corners:



I am thinking about taking the last week of March off work to focus on varnishing the violin, so I'm hoping to have the top graduated & barred by early next week, the body assembled by late next week, and the neck hopfully won't take more than a week so can be varnishing by the last week.

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Top purfled. The sizing didn't seem to help all that much, as it didn't penetrate very deep into the wood:

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It took until 1:30am but I got the outside of the top finished. I think it made more sense to purfle right after the ledge is cut, then cut the channel and finish off the roughed out arching. Again I didn't use any arching guides, though I don't like the arching as much as on my first violin. The faint mark in the upper bout is a bearclaw, there are a few in this top:

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I only managed to get the back roughly hollowed out. I spent most of the day getting a new tool cabinet to replace the drawer & shelf space of my wobbly workbench that will be replaced next Saturday by a cast iron legged, butcher block topped bench:

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I didn't do any work on the violin today, instead I worked on making this cool overhead light for my workbench. I never really like having a lamp on my bench because it takes up space and gets in the way, so I got two of those 'elbow' type desk lamps and modified then to make one long light. It's fully articulate and rotates where it's fastened to an extention fixed to a little 'attic' where I keep wood stored.

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I have the front graduated to a preliminary thickness of about 3.6mm for cutting the f-holes:

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I cut the f-holes tonight. I used a different method to find the placement of them, it involved measuring circles & radii. The f-holes seem slightly wider apart, at least the upper portion. Might give a slightly different look: