Mike Molnar's Bench

[Ken_N]

I glued a Christian Bayon style bass bar in my violin the other day.  I had two closepin type homemade clamps (the other 3 were too big to clamp, I don't usually go as low as 14 mm, and the bar was not as tall) and two big spring clamps.  Left them on for about an hour.  Took them off, and clamped the belly on to the ribs with spring clamps do see how stiff it felt. 

Worked fine.  Even with the almost 2 mm drop to the neck block that I hadn't planed on.  Apparently the top of the block wasn't that square to the side.

I used a piece of Spanish Cedar from a guitar neck I'm making for the bass bar on on the Alaskan Yellow Cedar top.

You don't have to worry about kosher Mike!

[Nick Allen]

15 hours ago, Michael_Molnar said:

Work on the coronaviolin continues. Today I glued the fingerboard and nut onto the neck. I know this clamp setup is not kosher, but it works well for me. Tomorrow, I will remove the clamps and finish up this neck assembly.

 

I hope that everyone is well and safe.

 

I use a length of twine to clamp my necks. It works great every time. More 'n one way, they say. 

[JacksonMaberry]

On 8/6/2019 at 4:31 PM, Michael_Molnar said:

I purchased some hardwood ash from a woman in New Hampshire. I put 2 lbs in a 2 quart Mason jar and filled it with filtered water removing any chlorine or other chemicals. I let it stand for about 2 weeks with an occasional shaking. No boiling. I then filtered the liquid through a coffee filter and got what you see in this photo. I quickly dipped one end of scrap maple in the real wood ash solution and the other end in my synthetic version. I feel that there is no significant difference. The real wood ash solution is on the left in the photos. 

This proves to my satisfaction that this is a chemical reaction involving the high pH components, namely KOH and K2CO3. So, I do not do any UV tanning.

BTW, any difference is due to odd wood figure in this trash maple.

Hey Michael, hope you're well. Coronafiddle is looking great. I somehow missed this section of the discussion last time I took a spin through your bench thread.  That's a very interesting color. 

A former teacher of mine used to treat his entire billets and got the wood looking a fair bit like this, but perhaps skewed a little redder/browner. He would never tell us what the trick was. All he would reveal is that he "soaked it in reverse osmosis filtered water in a large stainless steel tank". I suspected, from peripheral conversations, that he may have added wood ash to his water bath. 

Notably, the wood was consistent in color all the way through. I once split a billet of spruce he treated, and the color and texture of the wood were as homogeneous as wood ever is. I've seen people post here about ponding before and split billets to find untreated wood at the center, but this was not the case here. 

[JacksonMaberry]

On 4/2/2020 at 9:00 AM, Nick Allen said:

I use a length of twine to clamp my necks. It works great every time. More 'n one way, they say. 

Since learning of the stuff from Tommy Coleman, I'm clamping boards with surgical rubber tubing. That stuff can do anything!

[Michael_Molnar]

I am still slowly working on the Coronaviolin. Medical treatments have exhausted me. Nevertheless, I continue perfecting the varnish system that, I believe, Stradivari most likely used on the Messiah and some Golden Period instruments. As you know, I am a proponent of a dichromatic aqueous ground. Here are some photos of it with a casein overcoat, no varnish. The first two are the same batch process, but the third is a slightly different process.

 

[Michael Szyper]

This brilliance of the color looks gorgeous! I like it a lot! Hope you will be fine soon, wish you all the best. Are you willing to share more details of this beautiful ground?

[Don Noon]

Looks very Messie.

I would like to see a short video of it tilting back and forth, to see how uniform the flames look as they move to their extremes.  Whenever I try to put color on the wood, there's always some of the color that hangs around in the flames and doesn't move, and I'm trying to avoid that effect.  I haven't seen the Messie in person; maybe it has the colored flames... but the Cremonese I have see don't have that.

[Urban Luthier]

21 hours ago, Michael_Molnar said:

I am still slowly working on the Coronaviolin. Medical treatments have exhausted me. Nevertheless, I continue perfecting the varnish system that, I believe, Stradivari most likely used on the Messiah and some Golden Period instruments. As you know, I am a proponent of a dichromatic aqueous ground. Here are some photos of it with a casein overcoat, no varnish. The first two are the same batch process, but the third is a slightly different process.

 

really nice - i don't think one could ask for anything better. you've nailed it from a visual perspective in my opinion. 

[Urban Luthier]

16 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Looks very Messie.

I would like to see a short video of it tilting back and forth, to see how uniform the flames look as they move to their extremes.  Whenever I try to put color on the wood, there's always some of the color that hangs around in the flames and doesn't move, and I'm trying to avoid that effect.  I haven't seen the Messie in person; maybe it has the colored flames... but the Cremonese I have see don't have that.

no burn in on the Messie as far as i can see - I've seen it multiple times 

[Jim Bress]

Those samples look great Mike!  Did you use any wood treatment (e.g., UV) before the ground?  Do you have any spruce samples?

-Jim 

[Michael_Molnar]

 No UV or stain pretreatment. Spruce samples coming.

[Michael_Molnar]

Well, I am back at the bench after a hiatus with radiation therapy that exhausted me physically and mentally. So, I hope to be posting some things soon.

The latest is about one of my first violins given to Eva Fahey. Her mother, Jean, is my wife's best friend.

Recently, Eva needed some peg fixing and got great work done by Bo Ericsson in Orleans on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Here is a photo that Eva took of Bo and Jean.

I am told that the violin sounds pretty good. Beginners luck no doubt.

[Jim Bress]

Always nice when you get to see your efforts being appreciated. Glad you're feeling better.

-Jim

[Michael_Molnar]

Thanks, Jim.

And now here is Eva Fahey playing my violin with help from her daughter, Arden. Son, Oliver, joins late.

[Jim Bress]

Nice bit of multitasking there. 

[Michael_Molnar]

I got the CNC running again and knocked out some scrolls for future work. They have graphite inserts. The one on the far left is quilted Big Leaf for a future project.

[Don Noon]

You should have a good selection for picking out the best one for VSA 2022.

[Geigenbauer]

Looking great. Thanks for sharing Mike!

[Michael_Molnar]

This morning I ran a spruce top plate with a new contour and a 1/4” bull nosed (0.090” radius) end mill.  I like the results. Scraping this to a finish will be a pleasure.

 

And here it is hollowed out.

[Michael_Molnar]

Time to update my experience with the Grizzly joiner discussed earlier here:

I now can honestly say that this joiner works nicely on spruce plates. Highly flamed maple sometimes has tear out, but this is not a show stopper because it is so minor and avoidable with small bites. 

To get precise seams, I had to adjust the infeed table inclination. In theory this is easy, but it is very repetitive and boring. Moreover, the joiner has to be turned over to reach the adjustment screws. I also had to purchase some long metric hex drivers to reach them. The procedure is described in the documentation. You will need a long precision flat edge like mine from Woodpecker.com.

The only thing I don’t like about the joiner is the anodized aluminum tables that transfer black marks to the wood, but this seems to have gone away with usage. I know that there are some very hard grades of aluminum, some approaching steel, but I prefer steel. However, the joiner would then weigh a lot more, but that would be a minor issue for me.

If I had the choice again, I still would have purchased this joiner. It saves a lot of work and does a nice job. It works for me.

 

 

[Don Noon]

I see that Grizzly had discontinued your aluminum table version, and now only sell one with ground cast iron tables... 11 pounds heavier.

[J.DiLisio]

I've had a similar experience setting up my Wahuda jointer except for the additional chore of shocking the tables flat with a sledge hammer.  Be glad you didn't have to deal with that!  It took several sessions of minute table adjusting but it's now an indispensable tool in the shop.  

Although I have no interest in milling plates myself, I'm intrigued by the process and it looks like you're getting nice results.
Thanks for sharing.

[Andreas Preuss]

On November 25, 2020 at 3:39 AM, Michael_Molnar said:

This morning I ran a spruce top plate with a new contour and a 1/4” bull nosed (0.090” radius) end mill.  I like the results. Scraping this to a finish will be a pleasure.

 

And here it is hollowed out. 1.87 MB · 0 downloads

That's done with CNC?

[Michael_Molnar]

Yes. That IS a CNC.

[Michael_Molnar]

I am experimenting with different compositions to understand how to control colors. Any thoughts?