Ken_N

Summertime sure looks nice. It has been so gloomy here. I like the look of your casein ground, never thought to make it from high fat cottage cheese, I just used milk. I didn't use it much, and I didn't keep track of things, and keep good notes. Now that I'm retired, I have much more time, but I still don't put in regular shop time. So notekeeping is somewhat better. If I varnished something at least every month, I would get much better at it. It is a completely different thing than carving. I can do carving. The color is just from the linseed oil? The emulsion is mostly casein? Does it dry like a hard film, that you can hear the difference when you scratch it? It seems simple and repeatable. I like that. I don't use many gouges, I like planes. I do like my 4 fingernail gouges, that look like your 1/16 e. I have them in different widths, 1/4 to 1 inch?, and that is all I use on the scroll, besides a flat chisel. If you like the way the 1/16 e works, find a couple old chisels, and round the back of them, and that puts a round edge on the front. I find the rounded face far more useful than a flat face of a gouge. The violin is looking good.

That varnish is quite nice. I work on projects in spurts, and spur of the moment varnish decisions sometimes don't work. I like the arching, and the fingerboard too. Well done!

I'm working on the varnish. Need to cover up the blotchy looking areas, to clean it up more. The sides are the worst. At least I made them flat and smooth. Sometimes I forget because I never think about sides.

Happy New Year. I hope to make fewer mistakes! I'm better at making things, than fixing them. Probably because I like making, and I'm not fond of fixing.

I used to drive past a house on the way to work. There were 2 horses on the lot, and I could see, just in the time I was driving by what was up. Sometimes they stood tail to tail watching. Sometimes in only one direction like your photo. I saw another place along the road with Alpaca's, and they would do the same thing. One day ALL of them were along a small little fence. I would imagine them reacting to things going on in the unseen world. My Birdseye back has a "flaw" going through it. It wasn't there on either side. No big deal. I have sliced big boards with a hand saw; but would rather not. I found a local; well less than 30 miles away; mill that can resaw up to 12" wide boards. Their price is very reasonable. They slice the other half of the 1" thick, 12" wide board the viola came out of, into 3 boards; and sanded them down to 1/8". I can make them into 3 small guitar backs. All they do is cut wood, and they are really good at it. I like the look of that poplar back. I found some poplar in the scrap pile at work. They threw away the stickers under steel bar bundles; and they were big enough for necks. This stuff could turn green, or a really nice tan orange; even purple streaks. I'd like to find that instrument sized.

I finished them all up yesterday. 1/2" stock for the pegs. You need larger for the button to look right, I think. I usually make them to match the fingerboard and tailpiece. I didn't have wood set aside as a set. Just bits and pieces. I found a piece of Surinam? Ironwood for the fingerboard and Woodcraft. I used that for the cello fingerboard. It is very hard and stiff. The tailpiece will just be walnut, stained to match with iron acetate. I don't think that a heavy tailpiece is a good thing. A stiff fingerboard is. I have little chunks of ebony or katalox for the nut and saddle. My wife asks me how long does it take to make them. I've never kept track of time. It flies, that's all I know. If the stock is 1/2" for the blanks takes no time at all to get them cut out and fit to the fixture. That would be an hour or more. Maybe 15 minutes each to turn the first side? I.5 hours? The second side is fast, but I have to switch jaws, and you have to file them in both directions; because of the flats. Maybe an hour. The 3rd op takes as much time as the first operation. One cut back on the taper, and then a free cut up to the collar. Than the fiddly task of the decoration. Maybe another 1.5 hours. Cutting the flats and the heart cut out is another 1.5 hours. Then polishing with micromesh has to add a half hour or so. So 7 hours or so. I did it over 3 days, a few hours a day. It probably doesn't pay a maker to do that; does it?

I just made some pegs. I have 2 that still don't have the head carved down yet. The first step is the rough turning. Then I change jaws, and turn the head to the approximate shape. At this point the button is done, because it had the taper, and the groove for the tail gut cut, on the first side.I just round out the other side, Then I cut the taper, and carve in the shoulder. It will need shimming to get it true again. If it isn't perfect, no one will know that the head is .002" off. I use the cutting tool to mark the 2 grooves. I cut with files. Then I polish it all up. Now the head needs to be carved down. You could use the round end of a belt sander. It is concave north/south, and convex east/west. I used a knife. It worked great. Not much dust. I smoothed it up by scraping. The shape is by feel. The edges should all be about the same, to about the widest point. It should look even. Then it needs the carving that makes it look like a heart. I start with an X-acto cut for the centerline; then carve away with a 6mm chisel. I could use a 3mm chisel. This is a shot showing the shape: I finish with CA pore fill. I brush some iron acetate in the area between the collar and the head, to darken it so it recedes out of view. Polished with micromesh. This is almost complete filling; better than it was. I'll leave it like that so it looks like wood. They feel nice.

The viol? looks cool, but I have too many projects already going! I do have a heavy ebony fingerboard black a shop owner gave me that seems like it must be for a bass viol or something. The ends are 28 and 61, and it is 380 long. Could that be a blank for a bass viol? Or is it for a tiny cello? What are the two circles on the neck? Your work is very clean and methodical.

That looks great Jim. I still have another coat of varnish before it completely covers the viola, When I get to the color coats, I don't think I'll take photos in the middle! My hands are usually messy then; not a fan of gloves, except real gloves when it's cold outside. Those ribs almost look like quilted maple. Oh, didn't you make those out of Beech? A nice different look from flames. If I come across some very cool wood, I'd make another cello.

I started varnish on this viola. I put it in the trash can, with 4 black lights a couple nights, and in the sun during the day. I brushed on what I have labeled as tannin. I think it is water that had cherry wood chips soaked in it. I don't remember if I added anything to the water besides that, or not. It didn't get it that dark, but it wasn't bright white. This is like a sealer coat. You can still feel that it is wood; but you can feel the resin coat on in it. Basically 2 parts spirit varnish with 1 part oil. Lemon shellac, and Sandarac. It seems to dry almost immediately. I've tried thinning oil varnish with shellac, or any resin in alcohol; and it works the same way, and is extremely tough. Now to keep the good look looking good.

Nice looking violin for a first. The varnish looks good. I've done about a dozen violins, violas, and a cello. I'm just getting where I have a clue of what I am doing. I'm happy with about 1/2 of them. The latest viola is almost ready for varnish. It is on the light side, but doesn't seem like it will be flimsy in any way. 422 g right now with just the body and neck. It still needs a little tuning, and smoothing on the back. Music? I've always been progressive rock. Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, The Who. I do like Spock's Beard, and some christian bands. I love symphonies. I can hum and whistle along to Shostakovich or Prokofiev # 5 all the way through. Jazzy rock, like Sting is good. Mine almost all sound the same. The one with a heavy back and very light belly is very easy to play. The sound blowing in the f holes is almost the same on all; violins with violins, violas with violas. I don't play, so they sound like violins, violas, and cellos to me.

Straight on photos are nice, The Guadagnini viola I'm making now is from a few photos; I didn't have a full shot. But photos like these are far better. That Amati viola looks very slender. My much smaller Guadagnini viola has a 145 mm waist on the belly. Hundreds of years of rubbing, shellac, and buffing is very hard to duplicate, and I imagine it would be difficult to keep up if it was played daily. I like that your varnish has texture. There often is a subtle change in color, right from the beginning too. Yes, the bench copies have a lot more, but time can do what it will, they way it wants to.

I started on the purfling grooves last night; only the top bass side of the back. I have 2 markers/cutters, and finally have them set. All of my spacers seem to be about the same size, and I don't have a surface grinder at work anymore to take .010" off if I want to. The groove is slightly too small, but it is better than .5mm too big. Starting the carving by doing the edges worked great. I know where my concave curve is, and planned it out, so the purfling is just inside the beaded edge of the edge, and at the right amount down from the top of the edge to work. It did take a lot of time to figure out where everything had to be, but it was worth it.

Very nice. I like the varnish. I made a 5 string viola based on a 1/2 scale Maggini cello. I think I made the string length a tiny bit longer to give a 325 scale. I showed it at the MVA meeting, and Feng Jiang said that it had a nice Brescian arching. I just made it high, from the inside out, and it was pretty wide! It must be a monstrously wide cello. Normal inside form. I brought it over a year later to the last live meeting. people played it. Peter Lynch, the president of the club was playing it quietly, and intently. He didn't realize at first that it was a 5 string. I didn't tell him that someone showed me, that the entire bottom seam of the back had come loose! The dry air?

I've used Katalox for fretboards/fingerboards. It is usually mostly black, with a grey tinge in small stripes. Some is black and a nice cream color. It seems to vary in density; probably many different actual varieties. The one I was using yesterday for a baroque guitar in A/ukulele is about 1.4 sg, and very hard. It planes fairly well with a sharp plane. For finishing, a scrapper worked best. At least the plane I had wasn't up to it. It is just a tiny little thing. Other pieces I've used were not quite as hard, and they hold up really well. Easy to turn for pegs, and I've made tailpieces too. It isn't terribly expensive. I suppose the down side is, you'd have to cut your blanks yourself. That's what I do anyway.