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.