Andrew tkinson Posted August 21 Report Share Posted August 21 Hello Mike, the violin looks great. I bet you are enjoying playing it and just having it in your hands, finished! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted August 22 Author Report Share Posted August 22 4 hours ago, Andrew tkinson said: Hello Mike, the violin looks great. I bet you are enjoying playing it and just having it in your hands, finished! Hi Andrew, yes it's good to finally have it finished. I've been watching some youtube videos, fiddlehed is a good one for tutorials on Irish fiddle tunes. I guess I need to learn some scales too. I'm looking forward to starting the next one, I have enough wood and supplies for one more build. Maybe I'll make a few more in retirement which will is not that far off. When I start the next one I may start a new bench thread and let this one fade away. Maybe even video the process and put it on youtube. It's too hot this time of year, my shed is not airconditioned so I'll start it in the Fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted August 31 Author Report Share Posted August 31 ok, now it's officially finished. I took out and refitted the sound post so now it's straight up and down just behind the bridge foot where it belongs. I did a little fine finishing on the bridge including a parchment under the E string. This is my shop mascot. And then I went out and rode a rocket bike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted September 2 Author Report Share Posted September 2 The next one begins... I have this wedge shaped one piece back so I decided to saw off the excess. The saw got off track a couple times but I was able to get it back on track. I used a Japanese saw since it has a thinner curf. My old vintage 1800s rip saw makes a wider curf and I need to reset the teeth on it since it tends to wander off to one side. I may be able to get some ribs out of the scrap piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted September 12 Author Report Share Posted September 12 Violin Design I followed the design instructions in the book of Antonio Bagatella using the length dimension of the Titian Strad. (Pencil lines) It is not a match. It is narrower in the upper and lower bouts and the C bouts are a bit wonky. Bagatella had access to Amati violins though so maybe it would match an Amati outline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliemaine Posted September 15 Report Share Posted September 15 On 9/2/2023 at 1:39 PM, MikeC said: The next one begins... I have this wedge shaped one piece back so I decided to saw off the excess. The saw got off track a couple times but I was able to get it back on track. I used a Japanese saw since it has a thinner curf. My old vintage 1800s rip saw makes a wider curf and I need to reset the teeth on it since it tends to wander off to one side. I may be able to get some ribs out of the scrap piece. Finally, ... looking forward to watching this one come together, and good job cutting down that wedge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted September 16 Author Report Share Posted September 16 6 hours ago, charliemaine said: Finally, ... looking forward to watching this one come together, and good job cutting down that wedge. Thanks! I'm looking forward to it too. I have a week off next month and hope to get a lot done. This maple has really nice curl, it will look awesome finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliemaine Posted September 16 Report Share Posted September 16 35 minutes ago, MikeC said: Thanks! I'm looking forward to it too. I have a week off next month and hope to get a lot done. This maple has really nice curl, it will look awesome finished. Do you have some decent spruce to go with that nice back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted September 16 Author Report Share Posted September 16 2 hours ago, charliemaine said: Do you have some decent spruce to go with that nice back? I do have some good spruce as well and everything else I need, thanks! I think I have everything I need for the build. I need some bow hair though. I have three crap bows that all need a re-hair, one needs a new frog too. I could use some smaller gouges for the scroll work. The small gouge that I use for the last turns near the eye is not good quality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted September 16 Author Report Share Posted September 16 Actually now that I think about it... I may need to build a new walking cane. Lately I've come down with a real bad case of sciatic pain in the leg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 9 Author Report Share Posted October 9 I cut the scrap off the one piece back and it had some irregular shaped sides so I glued soft pine and began planing it down to get a square block and then I will try cutting thin strips for ribs. Wow when did I become a fat old man? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew tkinson Posted October 9 Report Share Posted October 9 Hello Mike. I am pleased you have got one of your wooden planes on the go. I hope the rib cutting goes well! I am sure you know what you are doing, as your distinguished and authoritative, not 'old', appearance in the video would strongly suggest so please feel free to ignore the following attempts at advice! I have tried to cut lute violin and guitar ribs by hand with varying degrees of success and find that I usually end up with failure if I try to cut as many as possible out of the wood thickness. I have learned, because of my limited skill in sawing and setting up my saws, that it is better to cut slightly thicker ribs which allow for correction of the cut, which can quickly stray and cut into or even through a thin rib. It is better to get a few less ribs than to get none at all. I would practice on some similar wood with your chosen saw, if you have any spare, to see how it handles. I find that taking about 10 strokes at a time from alternate sides so both sides of the cut can be followed and small corrections continuously made as large deviations are, I have found, usually uncorrectable. Forcing the saw back on track on one side seems to cause it to go off on the other side and forcing the saw can sometimes cause the blade to start buckling and moving in a curve inside the wood both jamming and spoiling the pieces. (This tends to happen when sawing wider wood than violin ribs and if, as is usually the case with me, the saw is not nicely sharp and evenly set.) If the sawing is going nice and straight take maybe twenty strokes - see how it goes! (I hope nobody else notices your bottle of titebond or perhaps this deliberate breaking of the Maestronet 'rules' shows your solid, mature, refined outer appearance as seen in your video is designed to conceal an inner recklessness - a liking for fast motorcycles and titebond!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 10 Author Report Share Posted October 10 Hi Andrew, thanks for the comments and advice. Well the wife says gray hair makes me look distinguished, I think it makes me look old. I have a Diston rip saw that's even older than me, from the late 1800s. I'm not going to use it though since it has a wide saw kerf. I'll use the Japanese pull saw since it has a much thinner blade. I'll be cutting much thicker than the finished rib thickness and cutting carefully. If this doesn't work out then I have precut rib blanks to use, I just thought it would be fun to try using this cutoff from the back plate wood. As for the Titebond, just kidding, it's not for violins. I just used it to glue the pine to the maple so I could fill in the odd shapes and make it a square block better for sawing. For keeping the saw cut straight and true it helps to have a precut groove for it to follow, it tends to follow the path of least resistance. Doing wheelies down the dual carriage way? Well I'm not quite that reckless but do like to go fast at times. I almost forgot to mention the wooden plane. It has kind of a wide space in front of the blade so I had a little difficulty getting it to take fine shavings but it works fairly well. In the end I did a few finishing strokes with the more modern plane set finely after using it to hog off some material with a heavy set of the blade. Excuse my dogs barking the background, they were having an argument with the neighbor's dogs across the fence, or maybe they were chasing tree rats.. squirrels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew tkinson Posted October 11 Report Share Posted October 11 You probably know this already, If you want you could "re-mouth" your wooden plane to tighten up the mouth but I would keep it open so maybe you could use it for taking heavy thick shavings when this may be called for. A lecturer told me years ago " the coefficient of friction of wood on wood is much less than wood on metal"! I must admit to only having a rough idea of what a 'coefficient' actually is but in this case what it means to me is that wooden planes a great for taking off heavier shavings. They are lighter than iron planes so can be less tiring during vigorous use. However maybe the greater mass of an iron plane may be advantageous in taking heavy shavings as it perhaps has more momentum? I have seen videos of people, when re-sawing by hand,recommending using a special 'kerfing saw' device to cut shallow grooves on the faces of the wood to guide the passage of the saw. I hope the sawing goes well! Every time I see myself in the mirror I am puzzled at seeing this sort-of familiar old man. Perhaps I should tell him to get out of my house but every time I turn to face him he has disappeared! I have no motorcycle but am satisfied with the recklessness of approaching 20 miles per hour down hills on my old bicycle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 11 Author Report Share Posted October 11 Hi Andrew, yeah I thought about 'remouthing' the plane but probably wont bother. It works well as is, and I can adjust the metal plane for fine shavings. I have a Record No. 6 for jointing plates. It's long heavy and can get a thousanth of an inch shavings. I have also seen videos of a 'kerfing' saw or whatever it's called. I don't have one but can achieve a similar result by other means. Videos will be coming soon. I know what you mean about the mirror. The people who live in the mirror used to have a young guy standing there but they replaced him with some old guy and he doesn't look anything like me. I'm going to complain to the management. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 27 Author Report Share Posted October 27 I'm going to try a varnish experiment. I have some rosin dissolving in turpentine, then I'll mix linseed oil with it. No cooking just a cold mix. I don't know how that will turn out, but I'll test it on some scrap wood. Also I'm making end block and corner block templates for Strad's P form, copied from the CT scan on the Titian poster. I used some horse/rabbit sauce on this and like the contrast with no loss of chatoyancy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 28 Author Report Share Posted October 28 Working on forma P copied from the CT scan on the Titian poster. I'm thinking of putting curly maple veneer on it to make it purty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew tkinson Posted October 29 Report Share Posted October 29 Hello Mike. I may be talking nonsense, but I wonder, if you only veneer one side of your mould, will there be a chance it may pull a slight curve across your mould as the glue dries? I have read (and seen in examples of furniture) that cabinet makers would veneer both sides of panels - even when the wood under the veneer was relatively nice - so any pulling forces from the veneers would "balance" and the panel should stay flat. Your mould looks like strong plywood so it may not be affected? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted October 29 Author Report Share Posted October 29 Hi Andrew, yeah I was thinking of doing veneer on both sides. I have two pieces that when joined down the center will cover one side. The other pieces of veneer are about an inch short of being long enough so I'll have to determine the best way to piece them together. This is supposedly baltic birch plywood and it does seem to be good quality but I got it from Amazon and I'm not sure it's the real thing or a knockoff from China. The outer surface ply seems too thin to be the real thing. When shaping the C bout I had a little tear out so I put some glue and sawdust on it. That's what you see in the picture. Once dry I'll file it down flush with the surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted November 8 Author Report Share Posted November 8 I suppose it is not considered good form to bleed on your work? I was able to scrape away the stain. I wanted to use walnut but don't have any so ordered some baltic birch plywood on amazon. It's not real baltic birch but it will do. I had some old curly maple veneer that's been laying around for years not being used so I put that on it just to make it look nice. Still need to drill the holes and veneer the other side and then put some kind of finish on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted November 13 Author Report Share Posted November 13 With holes drilled and lines and compass arc, but still need to veneer the other side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted November 21 Author Report Share Posted November 21 Veneered on both sides and put a lite dye on it. Maybe I'll shellac it. Blocks coming soon... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted November 26 Author Report Share Posted November 26 I started preparing some rib blanks, just smoothing them since they had some rough surface. They are still about 1.5mm thick so I'll have to thin them some more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted November 27 Author Report Share Posted November 27 Cornerblockology Started making some corner blocks. This is willow, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeC Posted yesterday at 02:42 AM Author Report Share Posted yesterday at 02:42 AM After cutting the corner blocks I had to trim them to the correct length. I clamped a backing board in the vice with the block in front of it and took fine shavings down to a scribe line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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