"Disaster" = "Opportunity"

[Tim McTigue]

Okay, in the pictures I've so far shown of my scroll, I've only shown the view from the bass side. There is a reason for that. When I was cutting out the cheeks of the scroll on the bandsaw, making the first cut, the heel of the neck fell off the end of the bandsaw table while I was cutting. I knew this would happen, and thought I was prepared for it, but it turned out I wasn't. The sudden drop of the other end of the wood caused what I would politely call a "bobble" while cutting, which caused a deep gouge in what would be the side of the cheek (on the treble side). Lucky it was just wood, and not flesh. I'm still new to this bandsaw thing.

At any rate, rather than consider the piece ruined, I decided to see if I could learn anything about making a repair of such a defect. Of course, I did still have the wood I had sliced off the cheek, which would of course be a pretty good match for grain and light-reflection qualities. The pictures below are pretty self-explanatory. The repair is not, of course, any more than "pretty good", and the cheek will always bear a scar, but I may still be able to improve on it before the final finishing steps. Amazing what one can learn when one "has to" (and has had access to such an amazing resource as MN)...

Here is the damage initially:

Step 1 is to clean up the wound, and cut and shape a piece of matching wood for the patch...

Fit it as well as possible...

Glue it in place...

And here it is... not too terrible...

[Bill Yacey]

Seeing how you had the cutoff pieces, I would have made the splice join with the grain. It would be a bigger piece, but less noticeable with the join in line with the grain.

[Tim McTigue]

Trouble is, I had drilled the peg holes before cutting off the cheeks, so I didn't have one big piece of wood to choose from, I had to cut one from between two peg holes...

[bronko]

Very nice job Tim. This is a perfect example of why you should never get rid of your scraps until the job is done. I must repeat what I said on another post- the sign of a true craftsman is how well he repairs his mistakes.

[GMM22]

But surely Tim can be cut some slack since it is his first (second?)

[jward]

Hi Tim:

Just curious on why your approach to cutting the sides of the pegbox is use of a bandsaw parallel and up close to the pegbox wall? A more standard approach that will give you more control close in to the finish line is hand or band sawing slices of wood perpendicular, up and near the line, chiseling away the fins left and rasping to the line. All very fast and will keep you from gouging. You can stop a cut much easier coming perpendicular to a line than one running parallel. Maybe, I am just a hopeless old school guy.

[edi malinaric]

Hi Tim - my condolences. Sometime we must let our first violins meet and exchange opinions on their ham-handed makers.

Mine so far has 1 short rib & scarf, 1 button still to undergo a replacement scarf operation and a too-deep-hole that has been successfully plugged. No doubt I'll add a couple more as we trundle on.

I've given up berating myself and have gained some comfort in the experience I have gained in covering up my tracks.

cheers edi

[Tim McTigue]

Just curious on why your approach to cutting the sides of the pegbox is use of a bandsaw parallel and up close to the pegbox wall? A more standard approach that will give you more control close in to the finish line is hand or band sawing slices of wood perpendicular, up and near the line, chiseling away the fins left and rasping to the line. All very fast and will keep you from gouging. You can stop a cut much easier coming perpendicular to a line than one running parallel. Maybe, I am just a hopeless old school guy.

This is why I like to post everything, even stuff that shows my inexperience. Truthfully, I would never have thought of this approach, but it makes perfect sense. Thank you! Old school? Maybe, but I'm just no-school...

[Ken_N]

I made a mistake on the scroll for my Montagnana just the other day. I was doing it the "old school" way and still sawed down too far. Doing it the "right" way is no assurance. I came up with a different approach and decided to make the best of it. It's not quite done yet or I'd show a picture. I really don't think your repair will be that noticeable when done. Varnish and pegs will cover some of it.

[JohnCockburn]

Hi Tim:

Just curious on why your approach to cutting the sides of the pegbox is use of a bandsaw parallel and up close to the pegbox wall? A more standard approach that will give you more control close in to the finish line is hand or band sawing slices of wood perpendicular, up and near the line, chiseling away the fins left and rasping to the line. All very fast and will keep you from gouging. You can stop a cut much easier coming perpendicular to a line than one running parallel. Maybe, I am just a hopeless old school guy.

Sorry, disagree. Tim's method is fine, done with appropriate care, and much quicker.

[bronko]

Mistakes are not the end of the world. In fact, they are an opportunity for a great learning experience. They can be our greatest teacher, forcing you to really think about how to fix it up and avoid it again.

[geigen]

"Disaster" = "Opportunity"

Excellent attitude!!

Anne

[David Burgess]

Tim, consider attaching a larger piece of plywood to the top of your bandsaw table to extend the surface.

Another option would have been to flip the neck over before making that cut, with a shim under the scroll part if needed to keep things flat, properly supported and stable.

[Chris Knowlton]

Hi Tim,

Before I cleaned up the outer shape of the outline on my top plate, on a spindle sander, I glued six small blocks to the tapered side so that it would support the plate, flat side up.

While sanding, one of the little blocks fell into a gap by the spindle and the sander immediately ground a good sized nick about 3mm deep in the outer edge of the upper bout. I cut off the nick along the closest grain line and made a splice using material from the top plate waste wood adjacent to the nick, matching the grain. I lucked out and the match was good. I looked for it the other day and I cannot find it, but the point is, we all make mistakes.

Chris

[edi malinaric]

Hi All - in post #7 of the thread I wrote about "ham-handed" makers and a"too-deep-drilled hole" - here is the pic-proof.

The pic of the back shows the "rough carve" depth holes that I drilled. I was distracted (Ok, OK - I was doing the talking) while drilling them and drilled one out of position - about 4mm too deep. I used a 2mm dia drill.

I then rough carved the back while leaving the area around the too-deep hole untouched. Later I sawed off the "hill" I had formed to use as material for the plugging dowel.

I took two 1/8" pop-rivet mandrels, ground the one end flat and glued them (instant glue) to the salvaged piece of wood, in line with the grain, one on each side of the hole. A dab of SWMBO's fingernail polish identified the grain orientation.

After everything had had time to cure, I chiselled through the hole and had two pieces of wood neatly attached to a mandrel - ready to be turned into a 2mm dowel.

Why 2 dowels? Well, yonks back when I was into gunsmithing I was taught by an old white haired gunsmith , Ted Whitehead, always to make three replacement springs. (filing a leaf spring out of solid is great fun) During the heat treatment the odds were that you would make the first either too brittle or too soft. If too brittle it would snap as you tested it. Luckily you still had two more to play with! Anyway here I didn't have to worry about faulty heat treatment - but old habits die hard.

It was a piece of cake to reduce it's dia. by spinning that wood-capped mandrel in my fingers while offfering the wood up to the bench grinder. In fact it went so easily that I undershot by 0.2mm!

Damn - 30 years later and Ted Whitehead still wasn't wrong. Oh well - lucky that I had listened to him.

I changed my approach for the secong dowel. I chucked the mandrel in the lathe and put a sanding drum into my Dremel. Went more slowly but I stopped at 2.05mm. A fine touch of the straight chisel to remove the radius of wood at the glued-to-mandrel end and it was ready for insertion.

While the glue was heating up I had a think... that was a blind hole that I was going to flood with glue and push a close fitting dowel into... mmm - maybe it wouldn't be too stupid to drill a vent hole right through the plate to avoid hydraulic lock.

Did so with a 1.5mm drill and then glued the dowel home.

To remove the mandrel from the plug I heated it with a gas torch. As the heat reached the instant glue the steel mandrel just fell away. (Mild panic - it had fallen among the shavings on the floor and they started smouldering.... drop everything - onto knees and scratch among the debris to uncover the mandrel and leave it to cool down in a combustible-free zone)

On scraping away the excess glue I was pleased to see that the dowel was pretty close to invisible. (it's easiest to find by looking at the back for the 1.5mm vent hole)

However, I was about 15 degrees out with my grain match. A blob of nail polish is too coarse an indicator. Next time I'll spray the end of the mandrel and scribe a line though the dried paint to indicate the grain direction. That should allow a more accurate positioning.

Next time? WHAT NEXT TIME??

Well it does seem a such a pity to waste that hard-won experience.

Seasons Greetings to All!

cheers edi

[Sharron]

Edi, I am looking and looking but I can't see where it was

Either that or too much Christmas sherry.....a bit early though even for me.

Good job I would say.

Sharron

[edi malinaric]

Edi, I am looking and looking but I can't see where it was

Either that or too much Christmas sherry.....a bit early though even for me.

Good job I would say.

Sharron

Hi Sharron - No, no - it's not the sherry - rather poor photography. In macro-mode, the 18mm - 70mm lens that comes with the camera isn't the sharpest that I have used.

I'll be upgrading it sometime. Usual rider - when funds allow. However it then becomes a toss up between 4 - 5 sets of violin tonewood or a camera lens.

If you project the 5.9 pencil line to the left you'll arrive at two diagonal cuts with a small nick below them. The dowel is below that nick - the chisel cut that ends in that nick, begins just inside the dowel dia.

Next job will be the button graft. Probably after Xmas.

cheers edi

[MANFIO]

Hi Tim!

Power tools are a good help but requires study (including risk study) prior to use them. I see that the problems you are mentioning here are related to power tools. So, for the first instruments (with perhaps the exception of cutting the scroll profile with a bandsaw) I would use only hand tools. With power tools things just happen too fast.

With my help, my daugther Dora (11 years old) was able to cut the sides of the pegbox and the begining of the scroll with a Kataba rip saw, these Japanese saws cut fast, are precise and leave a clean cut.

For the next scroll, go ahead with the carving just when the previous part is already clean and in the right proportions and measurements. That helps a lot.

Good luck and go ahead!!!!

[MANFIO]

Ooops.... double post...