Brian in Texas

Last night I glued the willow back of the viola onto the ribs. I had to borrow a few spool clamps from my teacher Ivan. When I made my violin, I'd made enough DIY spool clamps to the close the box on that one, but the perimeter of the viola is a little bigger, so I was six clamps short of doing the job. All seemed to go smoothly. Next, it'll be time to trace the outlines of the top and begin work on the spruce billet. After such a long hiatus from my mental funk, I'm glad to be making concrete progress yet again.

Great write up! How about some finished glamor shots of the completed violin? How does it sound?

I think Jeny nailed it. That teacher has some weird psychological hang-up and is looking for a pseudoscientific way to justify her position.

Very cool. Thank you for weighing in on that.

So, I was watching this documentary about a 1608 brothers Amati violin returning to Cremona for its 400th anniversary. Suddenly at the 20:50 mark I spy a face that's familiar to me! @Davide Sora, this must have been about 2008. Do you remember this event? Were you able to examine it closely and take measurements of the brothers Amati violin? Was there anything about the instrument that surprised you?

That's what matters the most, I think. You have plenty of time to really blossom as an artist and establish yourself like the old makers.

Awesome! I hope you sold a thing or two.

The figuring in that wood is amazing. It's gonna be a real looker when it's all said and done.

I've pretty much finalized the interior of the back. It's a single piece of slab-cut willow. The exterior will be cleaned up a little bit more once the corpus is assembled. I'm trying my best, but shoddy workmanship abounds. I worked to start trimming the blocks yesterday (not pictured) and noticed there is a small edge crack on one of the ribs. There is also a miniscule split on the end block. Hopefully these can be fixed. I'll see what Ivan says about these issues next time I see him. On Friday night, I got to try out a few cellos over at Ivan's place. I brought my own cello as a baseline for the test. Ivan just finished his second cello, made from spruce with cherry for the back and sides. An unusual choice of wood, but I think it worked out beautifully. At first, the cherry cello sounded a little uneven. The C-string didn't have nearly as much oomph as the rest of the instrument. It was determined that the original soundpost was now just a little too short after the initial installation. The new soundpost was installed, leading to a massive improvement in the C-string and better performance overall. Ivan's maker friend Charles Conti (pictured here, Ivan took the photo) had two cellos with him, both with the standard spruce and maple. An earlier cello sounded pretty great, but the newest cello that he just finished is extraordinary. The sound just poured out of it in an amazing way. It was ridiculously easy to play on, and it just felt like drawing from a bottomless well of sound, producing whatever volume and color I asked for with ease. I'll have to nab some good photos of Ivan's newest cello in particular. It's absolutely lovely looking, with very distinctive f-holes and an unusually beautiful inlaid scroll. All in all, it was a nice Friday evening. Any time I get to play a few cellos and have a few drinks is always a good time. The only downside is that now I like my own cello much less in comparison! Maybe it just needs a soundpost adjustment...

Yeah, it was pretty rough going. I managed to make my neck angle a little bit too high, too. If I want it to be a playable violin, I'll have to pop the neck out and reset it. I've seen neck sets done that way, too. I can see how it would be advantageous, but I'm not sure there are any drawbacks to doing it that way. I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to weigh in on that. And thank you for the encouragement, as well.

I for one am NOT a fan.

Thank you for the tips, @Davide Sora! Much appreciated.

Can I ask how often you sharpen or touch up your scrapers during this process? I struggle with getting a really great-feeling smooth finish from scrapers alone. I'm trying to get a finished surface from an extremely thin scraper made from an old razor saw blade. Do you ever use horsetail as an abrasive?

Already done that part. Violin #1 is complete, and now I'm working on a viola for a good friend of mine. You know what part just about made me cry though? It was setting the neck. Holy moly.

In that case, happy (probably belated) birthday!