narrow scroll width

[catnip]

I know that Strad added extra wings to a narrow maple back so as not to waste the wood..

 

I have some quarter sawn curly cherry with a width of 38 mm.  I normally carve Strad scrolls to a width of 41-42 mm at the eyes.  I am thinking of add an extra 2 mm on each side of the head of the scroll.  This essentially will end up being the rounded part of the eye where the chamfer starts. I think it will blend in.  

 

Has this been done before? 

 

 

[DarylG]

I haven't but I did recently carve a Strad inspired scroll that was 39mm wide because of a narrow neck block and it looks ok. If I were to add on a piece I'd be inclined to do it only on one side, and likely the treble side. I think it might be easier to hide the joint if it was further down on the eye where some patina could be utilized.

[wellerwilliams]

From Roger Hargraves bass making book pg. 24:

 

 

Finishing the turns of the scroll

The scroll turns were now finished in the normal way. 43 44 Because of the unusual width of this scroll, it was necessary to extend the eyes with two extra pieces, a fairly common occurrence on Cremonese cellos. 

[David Burgess]

  I am thinking of add an extra 2 mm on each side of the head of the scroll.  This essentially will end up being the rounded part of the eye where the chamfer starts. I think it will blend in.  

 

Has this been done before? 

I do it routinely on cellos.

[Stephen Faulk]

I do it routinely on cellos.

  I've wondered myself of this is a acceptable, now I can sleep much better.  

[Ken_N]

I have a poster for a Gofriller violin.  The eyes are only 37 wide.  By the way, I love curly cherry for scrolls.  Just stared another yesterday.

 

Ken

[Ron1]

I tried to attach photos to a post, but there is no 'paper clip'.  Am I not doing something correctly?

[Berl Mendenhall]

Ron , just save your photo to your desk top and then browse and retrieve it from there.

[Salve Håkedal]

I know that Strad added extra wings to a narrow maple back so as not to waste the wood..

 

I have some quarter sawn curly cherry with a width of 38 mm.  I normally carve Strad scrolls to a width of 41-42 mm at the eyes.  I am thinking of add an extra 2 mm on each side of the head of the scroll...

Why not make a beautiful scroll with the width of 38mm. Some variation won't kill anobody!?

 

If "Strad" is a straightjacket rather than an inspiration, I'm out. (Sorry.)

[catnip]

Why not make a beautiful scroll with the width of 38mm. Some variation won't kill anobody!?

 

If "Strad" is a straightjacket rather than an inspiration, I'm out. (Sorry.)

I think there is a relationship between the scroll width and the spacing of the upper f-holes.  Del Gesu scrolls may be a bit narrower as is the spacing of his upper f-holes.   Maybe he was using a different ruler?

[Rue]

I tried to attach photos to a post, but there is no 'paper clip'.  Am I not doing something correctly?

You have to also click on 'more reply options'. Then browse to find your photo to attach.

[Conor Russell]

38 is fine!

 

If I do add some, I want it to be at least a few mm thick. A 1 or 2mm piece leaves the joint too close to the surface, especially on the scroll where it will be handled. So I'd be inclined to put a  thick piece on just one side, or cut back to 34mm and add 4mm on each side.

[Rue]

I think there is a relationship between the scroll width and the spacing of the upper f-holes.  Del Gesu scrolls may be a bit narrower as is the spacing of his upper f-holes.   Maybe he was using a different ruler?

I have an old English ruler...that has inches broken down into 10ths instead...so there are 'different' rulers out there...

[Ron1]

Bert-  The problem is, there is no attachment symbol here on the 'reply' area.  I used to click on a 'paper clip' symbol, & then I could attach photos??

[Rue]

Bert-  The problem is, there is no attachment symbol here on the 'reply' area.  I used to click on a 'paper clip' symbol, & then I could attach photos??

There is if you click on 'more reply options'.

[uncle duke]

You can get away with 38mm Catnip.  You'll just have to dig deeper with the gouges and shave a little more from the pattern lines throughout.  Especially above the pegbox going up about an inch.

[Ron1]

 Thanks Bert & Rue.  I think I've got it now!

 

I'm not alone in my thinking that the protuberances at the sides of the scroll, when viewed from the front or back, should properly be referred to as "ears"; and when viewed from the side, as "eyes".

 

Knute Reindahl (1857-1936) constantly experimented/changed the design of his scrolls.  Ear extensions are a feature he used from time-to-time, and are seen on many of his instrument scrolls.  Attached are photos of two of his violins on which he added such extensions.  The first three pics are of a scroll (1902) that lost one of it's ear extensions, and the subsequent repair; the last two are of the most exaggerated extensions I've seen on his instruments (1920).

 

Being a non-maker, I've got to ask, why can't a wider block of wood be used in the first place?  Does everyone buy 'standard' pre-cut blanks, or what? 

 

 

[David Burgess]

 

Being a non-maker, I've got to ask, why can't a wider block of wood be used in the first place?  Does everyone buy 'standard' pre-cut blanks, or what? 

A wider block of wood could be used. Comes down to economy of time, and wood. I have rarely cut my own trees. Too much time, and way too much of a wild card, compared to being able to have a much better idea of what you're getting with pre-cut wedges from a wood dealer.

 

The largest wood dealers often have a large inventory of stuff I wouldn't use, and a little I would. I wouldn't want to waste a good part of my life cutting down lots of trees myself, and ending up with about the same ratio. All told, it's cheaper and more expedient to go through stacks of wood, pick what I like, and pay through the nose.

 

I paid about 30K one time for a batch of cello wood I really liked, all from one log. I would have had no clue what that wood was like if I'd been looking at a log, rather than wedges.

[DarylG]

Being a non-maker, I've got to ask, why can't a wider block of wood be used in the first place?  Does everyone buy 'standard' pre-cut blanks, or what? 

 

Neck blocks, as purchased from tonewood dealers, are often cut fairly close to finished width to maximize the yield from a log. 

[Ron1]

Thanks for the clarification, guys.  Makes sense to me now.

 

(I thought I'd get a couple of opinions on eyes vs. ears  :-))

[Janito]

The widest parts of the neck/scroll unit are the ears, so a substantial amount of wood is removed on either side of the block as waste.  Makes a lot of sense to glue ear patches - for every mm glued on, lateral waste is reduced by the same amount (if the block has parallel sides).

 

But exaggerated ears can be off-putting (Martin Clunes).

[Stephen Faulk]

I have an old English ruler...that has inches broken down into 10ths instead...so there are 'different' rulers out there...

 Decimal inches are quite common. We use the decimal inch all the time, but usually for measuring thousandths of inches not tenths of inches. Once in a great while something needs to be measured in thousandths of inches, but it could be large enough that it is bigger than a tenth then you include the tenth before you state the thousands. In industrial machining this usually occurs more than ..well if ever in violinmaking. The aviation industry I think also uses decimal inches frequently, last I heard. 

 

Biology based scientists may not encounter the use of decimal inches unless they were having some machinery fabricated by a steel fabricator. 

 

Interesting that before the metric system, you may know this, in Europe many regional versions of the inch were in use. I read a lot about this 4 or 5 years ago when I was trying to reason out proportions in Spanish guitars from the 19th century which were design based on inches. Today those who draw plans of historical instruments use the metric system as standard, but understand that old instruments were proportionally based in a different system. There were also base 10 and base 12 systems and other systems using inches. The metric system is kind of boring, but it enables international commerce. Wadda gonna do?

 

What bothered me was the way most ( guitar) makers today don't bother to look at these instruments or study them at some point in the context of the inch. The proportions and measurements look completely random and unorganized when the metric system is used to measure them, but if an inch system is used patterns of measurements and whole numbers and logical large fractions pop up frequently enough to understand some of the ways the makers used the measurements to design.  A back of an instrument will be 488 mm or 482.6  which seems arbitrary, but in inches that is simply 19-1/4" and 19" - It makes more sense. But we use mm to communicate these measurements today because it's now universal.

[Violadamore]

I know that Strad added extra wings to a narrow maple back so as not to waste the wood..

 

I have some quarter sawn curly cherry with a width of 38 mm.  I normally carve Strad scrolls to a width of 41-42 mm at the eyes.  I am thinking of add an extra 2 mm on each side of the head of the scroll.  This essentially will end up being the rounded part of the eye where the chamfer starts. I think it will blend in.  

 

Has this been done before? 

Hilary Hahn posted detailed photos of a scroll repair on Twitter similar to what you're  proposing doing, and we've had a thread on it: http://www.maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/332981-hilary-hahns-vuillaume/ .  Once it's done, you can't see a repair.

 

IMHO, you're just cutting out the middleperson to begin with, as your build hasn't got a player yet to inspire such virtuoso restoration.  Go for it.   

[Bill Yacey]

You could build out the eyes, but another option is to make a join at the center line of the scroll and neck.

[asovcl]

 

 

I paid about 30K one time for a batch of cello wood I really liked, all from one log. I would have had no clue what that wood was like if I'd been looking at a log, rather than wedges.

 

Holy crap, David.  Some highly accomplished makers don't sell their finished cellos for that much money! (cf. Lynn Harrell on YouTube)