Urban Luthier

love it! your edge work is stunning

Nice colour on the sample above! The varnishing chapter in Hargrave's bass book talks about his french polishing technique. For my part i'm developing a workflow that allows me to leave the final surface unpolished with a little bit of texture

All of this will be on the poster. It is worth purchasing a couple of the strad posters - Titian, Huberman, Viewtemps, Brusilow are good ones with CT scans. The Dancla is a good poster also but the violin in HUGE.

The Viewtemps has the rib outline included in the poster

If you are just star If you are just starting out, personally I'd only use the Strad form drawings as a reference. The hardest thing to get right (for me at least) is the corner shapes -- if you follow the stard froms accurately you'll wind up with an outline with corners that look tighter than what we see in finished instruments. Fortunately the Strad has some great posters with full size CT scans of the rib garland. You can trace it and use it for your template (correcting symmetry or not depending what is important for you. Although the CT is a bit fuzzy the Titan drawing is a great place to start -- it is a nice strad - not to big or too small. The other is the Huberman.

This thread might be of interest

This article may be useful https://www.roger-hargrave.de/PDF/Arching/Arching_Purfling_Edgework.pdf

brilliant idea thanks

Bending wasn't that difficult -- bending to the right shape and gluing with one pair of hands was a challenge!

Hi E thx. ribs are 1.6mm a tad less in the c bouts

ha not too scary but a couple of other things I found challenging... Working in a small space is really difficult -- one needs a bit of elbow room around the bending iron to work efficiently -- kind of hard in a 8 x 8 ft shop. I can barley fit a Cello on my bench! I found it easier to fit the ribs with the form secured in the tail vice so the form rested at a 90 degrees angle to the bench - easy for the first 5 ribs - kind of hard for the las one! I had to work really fast when gluing. Because the ribs are thin and cover a large surface area - i found if i used too much glue, I got a bit of warping even before the clamp was secured. I used a hair dryer on the highest setting to warm the parts before gluing and this really helped also one more thing - i cut the blocks with a gouge and rasp and for the most part left things fairly rough - I think the texture helped with gluing. I made this sanding thing in the shape of a bending iron -- a few passes with this really helped keep the corner bits that meet the form and joins nice and clean.

Nice work Tets -- love the texture

Cello rib garland. First cello. The amount of effort and skill required to build a nice rib garland was much more difficult than I thought - far greater than a violin or viola. Bending the corners required basically all my strength to hold the bending strap fast around the iron to set the bend. Twisting and warping was an issue as well, even working carefully i had to correct twist throughout each bout before gluing. Lastly it took a bit of patience to get an invisible joint between the lower bouts. All and all i'm fairly pleased with the result. The curves follow the outline fairly closely.

http://www.baroquemaster.de/saitenhalter.htm. These are practical working examples of fingerboards and tail pieces, but not from any specific instrument. I wouldn't make a tailpiece out of spruce however - even with the ebony veneer it may not be strong enough

All joking aside, Jeffrey is actually our moderator not the site owner. The business owners of the Maestronet forum and servers are based in Toronto. Sadly if Maestronet closes shop (which I don't think it will any time soon as it is an easy source of income for the owners) Jeffrey's posts will disappear along with everyone else

I think this is a serious matter. Our hosts (based here in Toronto) could decide to close up shop at any time (not that I think they will as the site provides a ongoing income with comparatively little investment). But if they do decide to turn the servers off all the info here will be removed from the public domain. This is one of the reasons why I helped pull together the Bass book -- this important IP now exists in a shareable form that will endure. But there are countless posts from knowledgeable contributors that will disappear if and when the site closes.

Agree with Julian above. They are expensive but the results are predictable. I've used 2 & 3 on the list Joe Robson Eugene Holtier Alchemist mediums

Cool E - looking forward to seeing your next project!

Roger H and Bertrand Bellin made 5 string cellos but i think they were full size. Cant seem to find any info however...

There is a very nice book called The baroque cello Revival by Paul Laird that lays some of this out. It is kind of an oral history with interviews from key players (including Mark who posted above) The bass violin refers to the early cellos (e.g. Amati King, Strad Medici etc) meant for bass accompaniment in early music. There are many early music recordings out there that feature copies of the Servais strad as for the Violoncello piccolo - Bach used it in 9 cantatas - inc bwv 41 - there are recordings out there that use the Fleming Amat, Jackson notes above. You can hear what it sounds like here

Sure Amazon.ca $299 CND dollars

I use two 3 overhead lights for general lighting, 2 bench mounted lamps from IKEA -$10 each! these are the old ones with the on off on the lamp shade -- these are much more useable than the new ones which have the on off on the cord. I don't do re-touching, but I have an OTTLITE with a full spectrum CFD bulb for times when I need to see accurate colours

I think the UK is very lucky to have so many talented makers working today.

Just added a small Miele vacuum as the last piece of my shop dust management system. It may seem like an odd choice for a shop but it is perfect for general clean up of dust and debris that doesn't get captured in the box fan filter or swept up. It has plenty of power, a floor attachment, hepa filter etc. And it take bags which means i dont have to deal with allergy attacks when cleaning a shop vac. It also super quite. This unit was an end of the line model so it cost only margnaly more than a small shop vac

nice fiddle - clever squirrel guard!