JacksonMaberry

Thanks! This is actually commercial, from Rauch Tonewood. It's maple blacks and pear center. Nice stuff, good price. I use this for when I want to be sure the purfling is very crisp and uniform.

I've used a bunch of things, what I do now is more or less like what Davide is using. I like rib-backed bard parker scalpel blades for finishing, especially the corners. The type of double bladed marker, set up with blades shaped like Davide's, makes laying out your groove rather easy, quick, and repeatable on a free plate or closed box. I will admit that the Dremel rig (I found i had to modify the radius of the guide portion, making it smaller, to fit my upper inner c bout curve) is nice in maple, but barely saves you any time in spruce which is so soft and easy to groove. If you use a rather smaller bit than your intended purfling, and make your purfling yourself, you can then open it with a knife and get good variation like you might see in rougher styles. If you're going after a more exacting style, don't feel bad about machining the groove entirely aside from the corners.

Hadn't considered this, but I'm glad you've got a trick that is helping you get the results you want. I found prufling very frustrating at first as well, but believe me when I say you'll wake up one day after doing a lot of it and find that you're much better. Hang in, keep at it, and enjoy!

Damn fine plane, good deal.

Absolutely, important distinction.

Are there any similar initiatives for spruce in the US and Europe? It's in a dangerous state as well, but I haven't heard much about it outside of forestry channels.

I could imagine this being the case. Would definitely like to read some kind of investigative journalism on this, could be Pulitzer material.

Thanks, I appreciate this

I'm happy for my bowmaker friends and others in our community that would be impacted by any major changes in the status quo. I do hope, and I believe that the luth world has seen the writing on the wall and will continue to develop alternatives for the inevitable total loss of pernambuco as well as preservation initiatives to stave that off as long as possible

Not in my method, but possibly in the Cremona method, I don't know. I like the outline of your approach to developing a model based on limited information. My approach is similar in some ways, I think, but different in some details. In a nutshell, I like to measure and draw, back and forth, until I have what could plausibly have been the original drawing.

If I were trying for a close copy, I'd start with the belly - it's the "face" after all.

True, for sure. I always like to remind folks to look at Lully's ballets: even in the mid 17th cent, there was a market for three voices of viola. This is part of why violas are fun to make - so many options

Right - if they were gonna cut em, they nearly always cut them to smaller than 17. Why bother otherwise? 17 is still bigger than most care to work with.

The Linarols/Micheli/Giovanni Marias, and other Brescians working in Venice were often not conceived as violas, but as Liras da Braccio, which adds to the fun.

It's looking good!