Thomas Coleman

Although I can't remember specific ones, I found a few youtube vids to be very helpful.

I pretty much do everything that Nathan does except that when I sand the end I use a concave surface ( it's usually the concave surface of a stropping block that I have) instead of a slightly yielding surface, with the sandpaper laid down in the concave part. I sand and turn the peg at the same time going through the grits and finish by burnishing on a piece of leather.

https://www.instagram.com/thomascoleman.violins not sure if the hyperlink will work. Otherwise, copy and paste.

That's exactly what I use! I made a little handle and epoxied it in. It is so hard and smooth and turns a really nice burr. I have a video on my Instagram that show's what a nice scraper hook can do. I also made a few for friends and they report really liking them as well.

yes, the mortise is laid out smaller than it will finish at. This is determined by the heel/root layout. Give yourself maybe 1mm on each side. This is a hefty amount but better to be safe than sorry. I would not sand the walls though. I would use a sharp chisel. It may help you to rub a bit of chalk on the cheeks of the neck heel where it will insert into the mortise. When you put the heel into the mortise the chalk will leave witness marks showing you material that needs to be removed. Remind me again, you're using the Strobel book? If you don't have it I would at least recommend the Courtnall/Johnson book and better yet is Brian Derber's book ( a bit expensive if you're only making one fiddle though).

You're welcome. The overstand is totally determined by how wide you open the mortise. As you widen the mortise, the neck drops down, decreasing the overstand. Eventually the bottom of the heel will touch the button. So, plane a little off the bottom, open mortise, check overstand, plane a little more, open mortise a little more etc etc. There are many other things to consider. I'm not trying to overwhelm you but just help you be aware. When widening the mortise make sure that the neck stays centered to the body. And measure the overstand on both sides of the heel. Some makers purposely make the overstand slightly different on each side but for now I recommend the same on both sides.

Welcome to Chicago Stephen!

Can't see your photo's but I think I have an idea what you're talking about. So, the very end of the neck is commonly referred to as "the root". That's what your plans say should be 83 degrees? That should work, but that number, although not quite arbitrary, varies depending on several things. The higher the projection of the neck the greater (less?) that angle. I happen to use 86 degrees. Think of a rectangle with two parallel lines on either side of it. As you tilt the rectangle those lines have to move further apart in order for the rectangle to still fit between them. So the idea is, in order to keep the top block a reasonable thickness, the neck root is cut back at an angle. Hope that makes sense. Hard to explain. If you didn't angle the root back the top block could be 20mm or more thick instead of the 17 mm or whatever it is. Another consideration is making sure the the floor of the mortise runs "downhill" towards the button. This guarantees that you will not encounter major issues with grain runout if you didn't use split wood for your block. As far as the bottom of the heel goes, like uncle duke says, I don't really pay attention to what that angle measures. I want to leave the heel long so that as I'm fitting the neck I have wood to actually gauge the fit. As the neck goes deeper and deeper into the body, I plane the bottom of the heel away as I go, adjusting as necessary for a perfect fit. Make sense?

I'm not really sure what your question is.

With respect Brad, that doesn't sound plausible. If someone had the skill to even halfway decently plane the fingerboard they would have no qualms about replacing such a drastically warped board.

Well, one clue is the "nice and thick" part. It just seems like an attempt to lighten the board. I was taught to do something similar but not near to that degree.

I'm liking the tubing idea. It's funny because I use tubing to protect saw teeth on occasion and also for a few other things but it never occurred to be use it for reamers!

I was wondering if anyone had any cool ideas for sheathing peghole reamers. I'm not able to hang mine and so I keep them in a tool chest drawer. The little plastic sheath that they come with is basically useless. I have seen them stored in a paper and tape cone before. Do you sheath your reamers? How do you do it?

Thanks for the reply Marilyn. A kind Mnet soul pm'd me with the info I was looking for. Mostly, I just wanted to read the article. Questions? Too many to list! haha.

I believe Marilyn was on the panel in addition to William Scott. I’ll look more in depth at that thread Jim.