Violin in lemon tree

Its been a very mild week, with 16 - 17 degrees celcius, clear blue sky and some 65% humidity, so the violin has been hanging outside in my lemon tree for some 3 hours a day.
As you can see I´ve gone for a patina varnish. At first I finished the violin "straight. Just one color. The darkest.. It was pretty, but looked a bit dull and to "correct", so I decided to go ahead an make some "damage" on the varnish. Its done a lot on new violins, because potential owners, in this case me, dont like the look of a straight finished violin. A have a week pont when it comes to light colored edges and so on.
Maybe I´ve overdone it a bit, but I´m VERY happy with the colors.

#104 with bindings and an inlayed soundport

slowly starting the varnish of the violin

A bit of amber on top of a wash coat of shellack. 

bindings on number 103

So here´s number 103. Indian rosewood with Pau Ferro bindings. This gives a nice contrasting color and a "lighter" looking guitar than with Indian rosewood bindings. The contrast is stronger near the ends. That is because the wood gets darker when its bended. The heat colors the wood, so the bindings are darker at the waist where the heat is highest.

Also, on this one I decided to not include a centerpiece on the back, giving spave for another way of ending the bindings at the top of the back.

102 with bindings

So here´s a photo of the 2A blanca with bindings.

# 101 with bindings

Number 101 ready for fingerboard and bridge

a picture of number 103 before bindings and purfling

Number 104 on its way

Number 104 is a 1A blanca with an inlayed soundport and machine tuners. The rest is all standard.
On the photo you see my gluing setup for the inlayed soundport.

Testing the violin in white

So here is a short test of the violin. The Jig is "The Pipe on the Hob"
I like the sound and feel of the instrument and I adapted to it very fast. It´ll change with varnish on, so its to early make to many conclusions, but the first impressions are possitive.

Final setup violin

 
On the first photo you see a little home made tool for fitting the bridge. Its so easy to fit a bridge to a new instrument compared to an old one. The bridges always leave the soundboard a bit wobbly over the years/decades/centuries.

Next 2 photos is with strings on... Almost ready for the requested jig. The setup ended up being spot on with a bridge height of 34mm (standard setup) which I will lower 1 - 1,5mm because I use steel strings. 

violin almost finished

So here´s the violin with the neck shaped and finished.
The violin is basically finished now. I need to fit a bridge and string it up and then give it a test before varnishing.

number 103 being assembled

So here´s number 103

A 1A negra without soundport.

Gluing neck and body

So here, the body and neck is being glued together.

number 102 on its way

Number 102 is a 2A blanca with german spruce soundboard and Canadian cypress back and sides.

making the neck - body mortise

This is most probably the most delicate and difficult thing I´ve made untill now.
There are so many parameters that have to be correct. Strobels book says:
1) the fingerboard is centered over the front centerline.
2)The neck and scroll is vertical and not twisted sideways
3) The nut is 130mm from the upper front edge
4)The depth of the mortise lets the lower end of the neck extend to the inner edge of the purfling groove or a little past it.
5) the height of the fingerboard over the upper edge of the front is 6 - 6,5mm.
6)The projection of the fingerboard at the bridge line is 27 mm
7) The heel of the neck meets the back button tightly all around and is sufficient for the back button height of 13 mm.

That sounds easy. Just dont forget that all this has to be a very tight fit because its going to be glued with Hot hide glue.
So I sharpened the chisel and started sawing and cutting and I´m pretty sure its all correct. This can of course be done with jigs and routers, but there´s something about sawing and chiseling within tent of a milimeter early in the morning, so thats what I did. Just like the old masters.

more Panama rosewood photos

Panama rosewood

Here´s # 101 being assembled. I like very much the subtle contrast between the Panama rosewood sides and the Indian roswood soundport. There´s contrast, but its a not a hard contrast but the inlay kind of grow out of the sides. I think its very organic and with a set of dark indian rosewood bindings its goig to be very elegant.

Number 101 braced

Here´s the soundboard of number 101 ready for assembly.

Headstock of number 101

Starting number 101

Number 101 is something special. A Panama rosewood negra with mechanical pegs and an inlayed soundport.
The Panama rosewood is the last set I have. Thats a petty because I really like it. Its some 10 - 20% lighter than East Indian rosewood but with a very nice high ringing taptone. Not to glassy, but more woody.. This should mean a slightly faster attack and less sustain.
I would have liked to buy more of this wood. But what happened is that I bought it some 7 years ago and stored and aged the wood for 4 years  before making the first guitar with the wood.  I liked it a lot and  decided to buy more, but since then I have only been able to find sets of a much poorer quality. Flatsawn and expensive. So its another tonewood that I will not use anymore. But I´m going to enjoy building with this set. The color is very pretty. I´ll call it nut brown and it´ll make a beautifull contrast with a set of dark indian rosewood bindings.
The soundboard is a piece of German spruce

Gluing the belly

And here we go with the gluing of the belly. Same show. Just a bit easyer because with the back on, the rib structure is a lot more stable. 

Gluing the back to the sides:

The way I, and others, glue is to put hot hide glue on both surfaces. Let it dry, clamp it together and the loosen on or twoo spool clamps a time and reheat/moist the glue with a hot knife that has been in almost boiling water.
This way you can control that everything stays where it should stay and its slow and relaxing. Two important words for me these days. 

Ready to assemble the body

So here´s the 3 parts that will make the body of the violin. All ready and glue is being heated in the glue pot. Nimbus is waiting for things to happen as well. 

gluing and shaping the bass bar

Preparing the bass bar.

Instruments of the violin family only has 1 brace. The bass bar. Its below the bass side foot of the violin bridge.
Its standard procedure to use chalk to fit the bass bar. You put chalk on the inside of the soundboard and rub the bass bar over it. The you cut away the parts of the bar where there´s chalk left untill you reach a point where the whole bar has chalk on its gluing side. Then its ready to be glued.

making a mini scraper

Just a small thing... Its weekend.

making a mini scraper. The hole in the middle is there, so that it can hang on a nail and not disappear just like the last one did......

The happy violin builder

Here I am cutting the f-holes on a cutting V. The thing I like the most about building a violin is that its quiet and slow. I love that. Good for listening to music and besides, I strongly prefer cutting and scraping over sanding. 

Top ready for f-holes

So here is the belly. Outside finished with purfling and inside almost done. The f-holes are marked and thats what I´m going to do next: 

gluing the top together

So, here´s a picture of the joining of the belly or top. I´m using my guitar setup. I just ´finetuned it with some blocks of wood a 3 screws. There´s no need to complicate life. 

jointing the soundboard

So next thing was to joint the two bookmatched pieces for the soundboard. There I used my guitar setup and a wedge to keep the jointing surface 90 degrees to the table: 

Starting the work on the soundboard of the violin

So here´s some really crusty and rustic work. Cut cut into two pieces. Next time I will visit my local carpenter and ask if I may use his big bandsaw.

¡¡¡Number 100 Finished!!!

So here she is all ready to be played. Now I only need to make a video.  The last photo, the one from the side has some weird light reflex from the sky, that I didnt see when taking the photo.