Sean Couch’s Bench

[Sean Couch]

Aha, that’s funny, I thought that the thin knife way would be less stressful than the glue all at once method. I plugged my locating holes before doing my purfling, so maybe the all at once method isn’t stressful if you have the pins to help locate. Either way, there are many ways to skin a cat.

I might try the sawdust and glue, or just leave it as is. I only notice those things when I take a picture of them. Or, I am so used to seeing it that it doesn’t register with me while I am working. My eyesight isn’t very good, I’m always wearing 2.0x cheaters when I work.

When I was working on the purfling miter joints, I used a 10x jeweler's loop with my cheaters. I had the angles looking nice and tight, but after cutting in the fluting channel, gaps started showing. Funny though, the gaps from my awful knife skills were mitigated, but the miters suffered. Next time, maybe I will try inlaying the purfling after fluting the channel.

I found a spot on today’s glue job that I am not happy with. I thought I was being quite thorough with aligning my scribe marks with the garland, but now I have a corner that isn’t centered very well. I can not see any exposed scribe lines so maybe it is where I fudged the profile contours a bit. It’s out of center by about 1/2 to 3/4 of a millimeter. When I take the clamps off tomorrow morning I can get a better look. I think now would be the time to fix it before I move on to getting ready to glue the top plate.

[MikeC]

yeah I use the locating pins for alignment when gluing.    Speaking of eyesight, I wear number 3 readers from Walmart.  And when doing detail work like purfling I have an optivisor over that.  So lots of magnification!  

[Sean Couch]

9 hours ago, MikeC said:

yeah I use the locating pins for alignment when gluing.    Speaking of eyesight, I wear number 3 readers from Walmart.  And when doing detail work like purfling I have an optivisor over that.  So lots of magnification!  

I might have to get myself an optivisor rig. I think that would be better than a loop.

It looks like I missed my scribe line on that corner. Odd since it was the third corner that I glued and the anxiety over gluing the plate had left me by then. Maybe things moved, idk, but it doesn’t look too horrible. If it is the scribe line that I am seeing, I’m off by about a half mm away from the C-bout towards the lower bout.

I’m going to ponder it a bit, like normal.

[Sean Couch]

A few pictures of the assembly without clamps and showing the corner in question. Lower left corner in the first picture below.

 

[Sean Couch]

I left the corner as is on the back. My scribe lines on the top look to match the offset I have on the back. I glued the top on this morning.

[Sean Couch]

The clamps are off. Looks decent to my eye. I started roughing out the neck and scroll today. It is pretty well squared up, but still a bit thick at 43.5mm with a bit of twist, so still a ways to go. I am aiming for 42mm.

 

A little peek at my label. Nothing fancy, I’m not very artistic. Just a hand written label with archival ink and 100% cotton paper that is acid and lignin free. I also marked the neck block and the top in ink.

[Sean Couch]

Last week I didn’t have much time to work on the violin, normal life got in the way. Chores were piling up around the house and I had to go help paint at my mom’s. I also flipped my work space around and freed up some more space. Fun times.

This week, I have continued working on the scroll and I am getting close to having the first turn roughed in. Even after watching videos on the process, I was still a bit lost on how the turns got cut. Last night the light bulb finally came on after marking the lines on the neck block and things started to make more sense.

I am muddling my way through, but so far, it is coming out better than I expected. I don’t have the right tools to get into the chin area. All my gouges and files are too large/thick. I might go roam around the hardware store tomorrow and see if anything looks useful.

 

 

[Sean Couch]

Second turn is in. I screwed up on the eye so I extended the second turn to try and make things look half way decent. I am still trying to figure out how I messed it up. 

At least things are fairly symmetrical. I am going to move on to the pegbox and come back to the scroll later. I have some bevel in it, but I might make it more pronounced. I still need to give it a good scraping.

[Sean Couch]

Made some more progress on the neck/scroll. Pegbox, chamfering, and fluting are almost done. They still need some tweaking and a good scraping. All I can say is that carving out the pegbox was not a very pleasant task. I’m glad it is done, but I don’t think working on the fingerboard will be much fun either. Time will tell.

 

[MikeC]

looks pretty good so far.  You could try carving into the eye a little more,  sort of a comma shape like this.   Or call it good and do the comma on the next one.  

[ernym]

On 8/9/2024 at 3:37 PM, Sean Couch said:

Made some more progress on the neck/scroll. Pegbox, chamfering, and fluting are almost done. They still need some tweaking and a good scraping. All I can say is that carving out the pegbox was not a very pleasant task. I’m glad it is done, but I don’t think working on the fingerboard will be much fun either. Time will tell.

Opening the throat a little more would make fluting underneath easier.

[MikeC]

Here's a little trick I used for opening the throat.  I used a small drill bit to drill through that area.  Then cleaned it up with a half round needle file.  

[Sean Couch]

On 8/9/2024 at 9:43 PM, MikeC said:

looks pretty good so far.  You could try carving into the eye a little more,  sort of a comma shape like this.   Or call it good and do the comma on the next one.  

Yeah, I think I’ll leave this one as is and do better on fiddle #2. I’ve been pondering about putting in a small inlay to make it look more intentional, or maybe that would make it more obvious that I screwed up. Idk. Lol

23 hours ago, ernym said:

Opening the throat a little more would make fluting underneath easier.

 

23 hours ago, MikeC said:

Here's a little trick I used for opening the throat.  I used a small drill bit to drill through that area.  Then cleaned it up with a half round needle file.  

Right on, thanks guys, I will give it a go and see if I can get it open more. I should have ordered a new bandsaw blade that is more narrow and has a smaller kerf, but I procrastinated too much and just made due with what I have. I still have a decent amount of work to do on the scroll so I might as well spend some time on the throat while I’m at it.

I worked on the fingerboard a bit today and was quite surprised on how nice it was working on the ebony. All of my prior experience with it was for making scales and liners during my knife making days. I never tried planing it until today. Nice little curls rolling off the plane and they turn to dust when rubbed between the fingers.

I stopped working on the fingerboard to build a jig to hold the board, and then another rig to hold my digital indicator so I can measure the fingerboard scoop. They are glued up now, so I will continue tomorrow.

[Sean Couch]

I have been whittling away at the neck. Getting closer to having the initial rough in completed. I was a bit perplexed on how to layout the neck root dovetail. It took me a few days of reading, pondering, and watching videos before the light turned on, but I think I understand now.

[Sean Couch]

Getting closer. I am about a half millimeter away from the final thickness of the neck. I think I need to deepen the contour near the root some more so the curves flow better and the end that meets the button is more rounded.

 

On edit: I couldn’t resist seeing what it will look like when the neck is attached, so I aligned the bits for a quick picture. 

[MikeC]

Looks good, I like it!

[Sean Couch]

Thanks Mike.

I am taking a break from the neck assembly so I can come back to it this week with fresh eyes. Today I worked on roughing in the saddle. The mortise is in, a little wonky, but in. The saddle is starting to get there, but more work is needed. The height is about 5.5mm. I have been working on the side scoops and haven’t made it to the curved part yet.

 

 

On edit: Did a bit of scraping on the saddle after I saw the picture I posted showing the ugliness. Lol

[Sean Couch]

The saddle is glued in. It still needs the final scraping and shaping.

I started getting the neck set into the body. Still a ways to go. Right now I am 1mm off center. Over stand of about 13mm and a projection of about 29 mm.

I think my neck root is too long (too close to the end of the button), by about 3mm. I still need to verify that measurement.

[Sean Couch]

The neck is glued and clamped. Overstand of about 6.5mm, projection of 27mm, and it looks to be centered quite well.

 

[Sean Couch]

Today I worked on refining the neck and button shape. Pretty close to being done. The entire violin needs a once over for dirt, dings, dents, and details.

Tomorrow I am going to my mom’s to celebrate the August birthdays. My daughter is the only one of my family that has seen the instrument in real life, the rest have only seen pictures. I am going to bring it with me. They better not laugh at my VSO. 

 

[MikeC]

They wont laugh, it looks good! 

I'm an August baby too!  A loooong time ago lol 

[Sean Couch]

14 hours ago, MikeC said:

They wont laugh, it looks good! 

I'm an August baby too!  A loooong time ago lol 

Aha, right on, happy birthday. We have three august birthdays to celebrate today. I am no spring chicken either. Recently, I got notification of my 35th year high school reunion. Time flies.

[Sean Couch]

I rigged up a UV light chamber with some 1/4” plywood that I had laying around. I used compact fluorescent UVB reptile bulbs for lights and it is working, but seems a bit slow. Today I ordered some proper Philips actinic T8 bulbs and electronic ballasts. I am going to set it up with four 18W bulbs and two ballasts so I can run with 2 lights, or 4 lights. My UV cabinet is about 5 cubic feet so I think two lights should be good, with the option of running all 4.

A few pics that show some color starting to develop. The violin has been in the UV cabinet for a bit over 120 hours.

 

 

Oh, and completely off topic, but I’m excited about it, so I’ll share. Lol. I ordered a new snowblower today too, should be here early next week. She is a 13HP, 32” wide, hydrostatic track driven Honda monster. It was taking me 1.5 to 2 hours to clear my driveway with my 17 year old MTD style blower and it was quite the wrestling match. Hopefully this new one will cut the work and time. My old body can’t handle all that manual labor anymore. Hehe

[Sean Couch]

The tanning is coming along. I think I am going to move forward with the refractive ground and varnish. I am still dinking around with the color, but I think I am close.

The violin has spent some more time in the UV cabinet and has had the casein sealer applied. Here are a couple pictures of how she looks now. Different lighting than before, so the pics are a bit dark, but she has a nice cinnamon color.

And a picture of my new snow removal machine. Hehe.

[Sean Couch]

First coat of “clear” oil varnish has been applied. I called it clear even though it is made from the 168 hour cooked rosin. My rosin after 168 hours only reduced by 24%. It should have reduced by at least 50%, ideally 67%, so I need to cook it longer if I want more color.

I did buy some tint and I messed around with that and I think I have a color that I like. I found it very difficult to get an accurate picture of the colors, but they are fairly close. The pictures are lighter than what they look like in real life.

Some color trials on rib stock. One in direct sun and the other in the shade. All samples have the same number of coats:

 

 

First coat of “clear” on the violin before being put into the UV cabinet:

Last night I tried shaping my pegs and it was a total fail. I bought the Juzek Tools peg shaper. It seems to do fine until you get the collar diameter under 8mm. After that I kept having issues with the blade grabbing the small end and tearing the ebony. It doesn’t look like the tool was set up properly as there is a gap between the peg and bearing surface on the small end. There also seems to be more slop in the entire assembly than I expected. Or it is all just operator error. lol.

I ordered the cheapest pegs that IV had, so it isn’t much of a loss. I still need to order my sound post setting tools so I’ll throw some more pegs in the cart too.

Does anyone have any experience with the gear head pegs that are out there? They seem to have good reviews, but I also saw where people thought they were too “chunky” compared to traditional pegs.

If my peg shaping fiasco turns out to be the tool and not me, I might try the geared pegs. I have a difficult time spending $150+ on a 4 spot peg shaver after I already spent $80 on the adjustable one. I’d rather spend $75 or $100 on a set of geared pegs, but that is my irritation speaking, for now.