Back with purfling on

Preparing for the purfling

So here I´ve routed the 1,3mm channel for the purfling and below you can see my hands bending the purfling on my supersimple bending iron that I also used for bending the sides. Its made of a 25mm iron tube that I found. Then I went to the chinese store and bought a 60 watt soldering iron ( 4,-€), which I crunched with a hammer and took out the element. The element I put inside the tube, I plugged both ends with aluminium paper. And here we go. It works the best upright. Then you can find the part that has the right temperature. The further up, the hotter it gets. 

back rough finished on the outside

Here´s the outside of the back rough finished and ready for purfling. As you can see, the knot is still there. It wont disappear. I will take the decission what to do when the back has been hollowed out. If its not looking like something that´ll fall out, then it´ll stay. This violin is not an order. If it had been so, most probably I would have had to make another back. People are getting really picky nowadays. I dont mind that you can see that wood comes from trees and this knot is very small.

Carving the back

So here I´ve started ´diggin in´ Using the templates you can see lying around on the top left as guides. You can also see that a small knot has shown up on the surface. Lets see how that devellops.
I really like this photo. 

Chiseling the edge of the violin back

Next step was to chisel the edge. 5mm thick, 10mm wide (7mm wide in the C)
Be carefull when chiseling curly maple. The grain is going everywhere. Be slow. 

Starting the back of the violin

So, I´m working a bit on the violin again

The back is one piece higly figured european maple. I have read , so I know that when building my first violin, I shouldnt use wood like that. Its to complicated to work with. But since I´m kinda stupid, very ignorant and a complete sucker for one piece higly figured maple violin backs, well, I decided to use this piece.

First the chunk is sawn more or less in size and with the drum sander taken down to 16mm thickness.
Next the thing is sawn out with the band saw... 


Another thing is that i upload photos and comments on the building of guitar number 100 almost every day.

http://news-from-the-workshop.blogspot.com.es/p/building-guitar-number-100.html

What does a 2A guitar mean?

I´m often asked what a 2A guitar is and what the diference between a 2A and a 1A guitar is.

Literaly 2A means ´segunda´ or second as opposed to 1A which means primera or first/best.

In real life, 2A can mean a lot of things but it always means a cheaper guitar than a 1A guitar. It can be an apprentice guitar with the masters name on or it can be the master himself using some not so high grade wood he has lying around that he wouldnt use for his first grade model. It can be so many things that each case might be different, but in general, 2A guitars, we only make when we dont have enough clients for our top model guitars. Its a way of covering a cheaper market. Reaching clients that for different reasons dont want to pay what our top model costs.

In my own case, I dont buy wood for 2A guitars, but when I build one, I choose the wood that I find to be esthetically lower grade. A good example will be the 2A negra that I´m finishing now. The soundboard is german spruce, Very well quatersawn. Straight, tight grain and absolutely no runout. But it has some brown striping towards the edges. Top quality soundwise.

The back and sides are form different sources. The sides are left overs from 2 sets, where I´ve cracked the other part during bending. One of them I´ve had lying around for 6 – 7 years the other is recent. Lookwise they are almost identical, but they are from 2 different trees.

Besides that, 2A guitars from me have very simple ornamentation. A simple, but handmade rosette and less purfling on back and sides. Also, the French Polish is done a bit faster with less levelling between the layers.

Other times, my 2A guitars have been test guitars. I remember having made one which I finished with polyester lacquer on the back and sides and another, testing a bracing system