Frank Nichols Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 I am slowly trudging ahead to the day I can actually start carving my #1 violin. I have received a Strad Poster for the Messiah from a very generous member here, and will be making a "based on" not "copy of" the Messiah violin from it. The direction I have decided to go is to try and make it symmetrical, so I am "averaging" the measurements (where there are two values for sides, etc) from the poster and using that average for my drawing. Step one is to be the scroll and neck. Being me, I want to understand what I am doing, and so in digging around, I found Addie's drawings (THANK YOU!) and was going to use the Bett's Scroll drawing he provided (I assume Addie is a he?) I decided to check it against the photo on the poster. That led me to trying to figure out what the measurements on the poster mean - ie. the measurement is from what point to what point on the scroll, what landmarks can I count on while carving. Since I am averaging, I expect the drawing to be off a little - a few millimeters - but close. The following screen shots show my dilemma at this point, I could use some insight into what I am doing wrong (if anything). I KNOW I am over thinking it, but this violin is a teaching aide and my way of learning violin making from wood working to designing all of it. So, I really want to understand what I am doing as opposed to just charging forward making something that looks sort of right. The photo is of the poster and I uniformly scaled and rotated it to fit the guideline grid and adjusted the rotation using the neck line below the fingerboard. Any help in understanding why the grid and curves don't line up what the photo would be appreciated:How I setup the guidelines to check/draw the scroll.Here is what Addie's Bett's scroll looks like on that grid with a photo from the Messiah Poster.And here is what the Silverpoint Drawing from the Bett's file looks like on that grid. And finally here is my scroll on the grid.
catnip Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 Looking at your last picture (your scroll) check the placement of the A peg hole. It looks to low and / or your D peg hole is too high. The A string will rub across the D peg. My advice is too get a block of Soft maple and practice carving a scroll so that you can go through the whole process. There are many places to go wrong.
Frank Nichols Posted May 29, 2017 Author Report Posted May 29, 2017 Interesting, I have not gotten to adjusting the peg locations yet. I was struggling with the Scroll and why it is not fitting. From the pegbox rightward through the neck is just the Bett's drawing that I need to measure against the Poster once I get the scroll done. Thanks for the advice, I was going to laminate a couple pieces of Popular from Lowes to practice on - I don't know anything, how to use chisels, how to do anything I may practice more than once, then hit the real wood. But, first I want. template and that is why I am going through this - so I know when I am carving, where the from-to measurements are taken, so I can guide my carving. Right now, the photo and my template seem to disagree with where the peaks and valleys are, and since the photo is from the poster, and the measurements are from the table on the poster - I obviously am doing something wrong, at least I assume the poster is right? Thanks Frank
Addie Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 If there's one lesson to be learned from my Stradivari scroll comparison, it's that there is a lot of variation. Another thing is that one is rarely able to make all of the measurements fit the photos. Get the outline of the pegbox and volute the right size, and as many of the others as you can. Then draw what you see. You might have a look at the making the violin website... I think those templates are the Titian? Don't use the peg hole layout, though. I seem to recall Matt Noykos posting a diagram on how to lay out the holes.
Frank Nichols Posted May 29, 2017 Author Report Posted May 29, 2017 1 minute ago, Addie said: If there's one lesson to be learned from my Stradivari scroll comparison, it's that there is a lot of variation. Another thing is that one is rarely able to make all of the measurements fit the photos. Get the outline of the pegbox and volute the right size, and as many of the others as you can. Then draw what you see. You might have a look at the making the violin website... I think those templates are the Titian? Don't use the peg hole layout, though. I seem to recall Matt Noykos posting a diagram on how to lay out the holes. Thanks, I appreciate your comment, it helps a lot. So, if I understand what you said, I should go with the measured numbers listed on the poster as the "law", and use the photo only as a "hint". The measurements all seem to make sense, the problem comes in when I try to map those onto the Photo - thank you! Frank
Addie Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 P.S. Instead of a grid, I use height and width rectangles that can be shifted around semi-independently, since caliper measurements don't rely on a grid.
Addie Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 13 minutes ago, FrankNichols said: Thanks, I appreciate your comment, it helps a lot. So, if I understand what you said, I should go with the measured numbers listed on the poster as the "law", and use the photo only as a "hint". The measurements all seem to make sense, the problem comes in when I try to map those onto the Photo - thank you! Frank Well, no, but yes. you really need to get the pegbox length right, the volute size right, and as much of the rest as can be fit. Then draw what you see. To get the character of a particular scroll, you need the outline, the correct position of the eye, and how the turns get smaller. Are they even reductions in size, in relation to the outline and eye, or are the turns wide in some places and narrow in others? That's where it's best to draw what you see. The Titian looks pretty close to the silverpoint in your comparison. Keep in mind that the silverpoint is a bit thick and lumpy where the nut would be.
Addie Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 P.P.S. The throat of the silverpoint is off in all of the comparisons: it doesn't reach far enough under the volute.
Frank Nichols Posted May 29, 2017 Author Report Posted May 29, 2017 Thanks Addie, you have been a big help! I will take another shot at it tonight. Frank
Addie Posted May 29, 2017 Report Posted May 29, 2017 P.P.P.S. Where I have written "Titian," I meant "Messiah."
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 Okay, version 2 of my template drawing for neck and scroll - I spent an entire day scouring the forums history on how to locate the peg's and then thinking about it, and the implications for using the Messiah as the basis for #1. It seems neck is a "little" short and the pegbox a little small on the Messiah. I opened it a little and move the peg's around a little to get the 50:16:18:16 spacing and at the same time have the string from the highest peg not touch the other pegs on the way up to the nut. I am still hazy on the measurement of the neck, all the measurements I can find reference the neck as 130 (except for those that aren't - which then impact the stop distance) but, the measurement always refers to the edge of the top to the nut. After measuring a lot of photo's and reading countless tables, I can't find anything that says how long the neck should be BEFORE it is attached. Silly question huh!? So, I made it 10 mm longer than needed to deal with the miter it gets mounted into, and I figure I can always remove the extra length as I get closer to mounting it and hopefully by then I will know a little bit more about what I am doing. As always any thoughts or suggestions on this pattern for my neck would be greatly appreciated. Tomorrow I will review and double check all the measurements, and document the decisions that went into it - it is sort of a half from published measurements, and half from the photo's from the poster, and half from general reading and the Strobel books... Thanks, Frank
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 2 hours ago, Addie said: 136mm Thanks, so I would have had to remove 4 mm - not too bad a safety guess I will reduce it. Frank
Davide Sora Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 136 minimum, I prefer 137..... should also be considered the angle of the heel, you will need to decide what to use. These are my choices for total neck lenght, heel angle and pegs placement :
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 1 minute ago, Davide Sora said: 136 minimum, I prefer 137..... should also be considered the angle of the heel, you will need to decide what to use. These are my choices for total neck lenght, heel angle and pegs placement : Great! Thank you so very much, and I really prefer your peg positions over mine! The angle is 15%, that seemed to be the consensus that I found everywhere. Thank you very much for that drawing, it answers so many questions, and while you are here, thank you very much for your videos, I have been studying them for the past week or two. This is embarrassing, but I bet the numbers are in your annotations, which I keep forgetting to read the English translations - my bad. I am watching the entire series on making the scroll again today, so this time I will read the English comments! Thank you so much Davide, I appreciate your answer and your videos. Frank
Davide Sora Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 I'm aware that my videos are a bit long and it's easy to get lost.... But if you look for them details are there, hidden in some "folds" of the video, even if it takes a bit of patience and perseverance to find them.
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 1 minute ago, Davide Sora said: I'm aware that my videos are a bit long and it's easy to get lost.... But if you look for them details are there, hidden in some "folds" of the video, even if it takes a bit of patience and perseverance to find them. Your videos are perfect, and yes, I have watched them all numerous times, and it seems every time I learn more, I see something new, and understand more of what you are doing and why. I complete like the fact you show each step in detail with no skipping, it let's us see you thoughts and methodology.
Urban Luthier Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 1 hour ago, Davide Sora said: 136 minimum, I prefer 137..... should also be considered the angle of the heel, you will need to decide what to use. These are my choices for total neck lenght, heel angle and pegs placement : Davide -- thank you so much for posting this. The info is very useful!
Janito Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 Note that the configuration of E, D and A pegs as in Davide's drawing can lead to problems with tuning if, for example, the wound string on the D peg disturbs the travel of the A string. Small adjustments of the peg positions take care of that problem.
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 51 minutes ago, Janito said: Note that the configuration of E, D and A pegs as in Davide's drawing can lead to problems with tuning if, for example, the wound string on the D peg disturbs the travel of the A string. Small adjustments of the peg positions take care of that problem. Thank you for the suggestion, I understand completely, at last half of yesterday was spent on mine trying to understand all the considerations of where the pegs go. Silly me, I always thought they were on the side in the pegbox - it's a bit more complex than that. Many considerations, one is aesthetics, another is access for the player to adjust them, another is that they stay in the hole, another is that the string from one peg doesn't interfere or even touch another pegs string or the peg (for numerous reasons), etc, etc, etc. I went to length to have at least 0.5mm between the bottom of a string miss the adjacent peg (on the way to the nut). Davide's is closer than that but achieves it (remember that a properly installed string is on the opposite end of the pegs adjacent to it, so unless you have a lot of windings they should not overlap directly - could happen I guess, I have only strung cellos so far, more for me to learn So, anyway, there is a lot of debate about how much room to leave, both here in past threads and all over the internet - it seems to be a recurring theme of debate. Oh and don't forget to add in the possible enlarging of the pegbox to allow the G peg to be moved a little further from the nut to reduce the angle it poses over and so reduce the tension/stress. (I did that on my version) which then affects the position of the other pegs, since they are now on a direct part of the curve of neck/box. Everything seems to interact and affect everything else. SO, I took Davide's peg positions in his drawing and examined them at 0.1mm resolution and found they missed the other pegs, but I felt they needed just a tiny touch more clearance so I adjusted mine slightly... I will post my final result once it is final
Davide Sora Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 3 hours ago, Janito said: Note that the configuration of E, D and A pegs as in Davide's drawing can lead to problems with tuning if, for example, the wound string on the D peg disturbs the travel of the A string. Small adjustments of the peg positions take care of that problem. Accurately draw this kind of things is difficult because measures as the height of the nut or the diameters of the pegs can vary and are difficult to calculate exactly. I would say that my drawing is the limit position with a low nut and the A peg placed as low as possible (center one millimeter over the middle of the pegbox). Note that pegs are conical, so where the string leave the peg the diameter is greater than the peg that have to be cleared by the string, allowing little more clearence. However the only way to understand if our theoretical placement works is to test it in practice with the strings in place, observing the real clearence from pegs, eventually taking notes of possible adjustements to be made on the template to perfect it.
Frank Nichols Posted May 31, 2017 Author Report Posted May 31, 2017 Adding the pegs are conical to the almost endless list of considerations around what seemed to start with a simple question of where to put the pegs Also, the type of string would seem important, gut steel, synthetic, etc all have different diameters... I guess I could start with a very small hole and keep enlarging it until the strings don't touch the other pegs - except that means making a bunch of sets of pegs until I found the right size. I guess I could make a set of pegs for each diameter to be tested in advance, and then keep them as "standards" to determine what diameter pegs works with the particular pegbox/neck. I had been thinking about putting in bushings to start with, which could be adjusted to raise and lower the peg also, not sure about that one - but I think I saw someone (Don Noon?) had a photo of one of his where I think he had put bushings into a new neck... maybe not, maybe that was the night I had pizza too late... Frank
Addie Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 All of my drawings use 136mm. Fans of Davide (that should be every serious maker ) should add 1mm. I'm pretty sure my drawings also use an angle of 85 degrees. I don't have time to measure them all right now, but will, if it matters to anyone.
Davide Sora Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 The great thing about when you have developed a pegbox and pegs placement that works you can use it as a reference and guideline for all future models. My last from MS 513 superimposed on the previous neck and peg placement drawing.
Davide Sora Posted May 31, 2017 Report Posted May 31, 2017 5 minutes ago, Addie said: All of my drawings use 136mm. Fans of Davide (that should be every serious maker ) should add 1mm. I'm pretty sure my drawings also use an angle of 85 degrees. I don't have time to measure them all right now, but will, if it matters to anyone. Sometimes I plane away the line of the template at the heel approaching your 136 mm lenght, it's not a big deal. The important thing is to get used to a measure because it will be in relation to the depth of the mortise.
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