Sean Couch

I rigged up a UV light chamber with some 1/4” plywood that I had laying around. I used compact fluorescent UVB reptile bulbs for lights and it is working, but seems a bit slow. Today I ordered some proper Philips actinic T8 bulbs and electronic ballasts. I am going to set it up with four 18W bulbs and two ballasts so I can run with 2 lights, or 4 lights. My UV cabinet is about 5 cubic feet so I think two lights should be good, with the option of running all 4. A few pics that show some color starting to develop. The violin has been in the UV cabinet for a bit over 120 hours. Oh, and completely off topic, but I’m excited about it, so I’ll share. Lol. I ordered a new snowblower today too, should be here early next week. She is a 13HP, 32” wide, hydrostatic track driven Honda monster. It was taking me 1.5 to 2 hours to clear my driveway with my 17 year old MTD style blower and it was quite the wrestling match. Hopefully this new one will cut the work and time. My old body can’t handle all that manual labor anymore. Hehe

Looking good Mike. I calculated the density of my spruce the way Ernym described. It’s another chance to use your drug dealer gram scale, that’s what I used to weigh mine too. Lol

Looking great. Are you going to do a fully rounded bead on the edge? I'm asking because the scoop looks square-ish on the outer perimeter. I have been wondering how the fully rounded bead would be carved, and leaving the scoop inset from the edge and more square is what first came to mind. When I saw your fluting, I had to ask.

Aha, right on, happy birthday. We have three august birthdays to celebrate today. I am no spring chicken either. Recently, I got notification of my 35th year high school reunion. Time flies.

Today I worked on refining the neck and button shape. Pretty close to being done. The entire violin needs a once over for dirt, dings, dents, and details. Tomorrow I am going to my mom’s to celebrate the August birthdays. My daughter is the only one of my family that has seen the instrument in real life, the rest have only seen pictures. I am going to bring it with me. They better not laugh at my VSO.

The neck is glued and clamped. Overstand of about 6.5mm, projection of 27mm, and it looks to be centered quite well.

The saddle is glued in. It still needs the final scraping and shaping. I started getting the neck set into the body. Still a ways to go. Right now I am 1mm off center. Over stand of about 13mm and a projection of about 29 mm. I think my neck root is too long (too close to the end of the button), by about 3mm. I still need to verify that measurement.

Thanks Mike. I am taking a break from the neck assembly so I can come back to it this week with fresh eyes. Today I worked on roughing in the saddle. The mortise is in, a little wonky, but in. The saddle is starting to get there, but more work is needed. The height is about 5.5mm. I have been working on the side scoops and haven’t made it to the curved part yet. On edit: Did a bit of scraping on the saddle after I saw the picture I posted showing the ugliness. Lol

Getting closer. I am about a half millimeter away from the final thickness of the neck. I think I need to deepen the contour near the root some more so the curves flow better and the end that meets the button is more rounded. On edit: I couldn’t resist seeing what it will look like when the neck is attached, so I aligned the bits for a quick picture.

I have been whittling away at the neck. Getting closer to having the initial rough in completed. I was a bit perplexed on how to layout the neck root dovetail. It took me a few days of reading, pondering, and watching videos before the light turned on, but I think I understand now.

Yeah, I think I’ll leave this one as is and do better on fiddle #2. I’ve been pondering about putting in a small inlay to make it look more intentional, or maybe that would make it more obvious that I screwed up. Idk. Lol Right on, thanks guys, I will give it a go and see if I can get it open more. I should have ordered a new bandsaw blade that is more narrow and has a smaller kerf, but I procrastinated too much and just made due with what I have. I still have a decent amount of work to do on the scroll so I might as well spend some time on the throat while I’m at it. I worked on the fingerboard a bit today and was quite surprised on how nice it was working on the ebony. All of my prior experience with it was for making scales and liners during my knife making days. I never tried planing it until today. Nice little curls rolling off the plane and they turn to dust when rubbed between the fingers. I stopped working on the fingerboard to build a jig to hold the board, and then another rig to hold my digital indicator so I can measure the fingerboard scoop. They are glued up now, so I will continue tomorrow.

I think your purfling looks very nice. I’d be happy with it. When I did my purfling, I used Rodger’s method, but I did not size the channel, just the purfling. I did not do the fluting first, I left the ledge flat and cut the purfling channel to a depth of 2mm. My ledge thickness was 4.3mm. I haven’t seen any signs of my purfling coming loose, but sizing the channel sounds like a good idea. I fluted the purfling channel down to 3.1 ish mm, so theoretically, I have about 0.8mm of purfling still in the channel.

Made some more progress on the neck/scroll. Pegbox, chamfering, and fluting are almost done. They still need some tweaking and a good scraping. All I can say is that carving out the pegbox was not a very pleasant task. I’m glad it is done, but I don’t think working on the fingerboard will be much fun either. Time will tell.

Second turn is in. I screwed up on the eye so I extended the second turn to try and make things look half way decent. I am still trying to figure out how I messed it up. At least things are fairly symmetrical. I am going to move on to the pegbox and come back to the scroll later. I have some bevel in it, but I might make it more pronounced. I still need to give it a good scraping.

Right on. Slow progress is still progress, in my book. I am looking forward to seeing if you will be able to quantify the difference the arching height makes. Should be interesting.