Viola to viola d'amore conversion

[Bo Pontoppidan]

As I have mentioned in a previous thread https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/359953-viola-damore-setup-problem/ I borrowed a viola d'amore with the intention of playing it with my baroque ensemble. Unfortunately it had some issues with the setup - mostly the fingerboard being too flat. And it didn't sound very good.

So I decided to convert a chinese viola I purchased about 12 years ago into a viola d'amore and thought I would share the result here:

Removing the neck was a first for me and a pretty scary experience. But it went well after looking for guidance here and on youtube. I widened the neck mortice to accept the new neck keeping the button the same size. The neck block was wide enough.

I decided to go for a six string version and after looking around I liked the idea of having a middle wall in the head as Stradivari did. It allows the head to be a bit shorter. I also decided to go for a lighter "scroll" inspired by Helen Michetschlägers small violas.

And since I didn't have an ebony blank big enough for the wider fingerboard I made it from flamed maple with a matching tailpiece. With the simpler scroll and the maple fingerboard the new neck is actually lighter than the one I removed despite being wider. The fingerboard has a 38 mm radius.

The sympathetic strings are attached to the tailpiece and not to pins in the end block. I wanted to have fine tuners and modified some Hill style tuners to have the hook under the tailpiece. This trick was shown to me by the Swedish violin maker Anders Norudde.

 

The nut and the saddle are made from bone (saved after an osso buco meal )

The bridge off course needed to be wider in order to accommodate 6 strings but I was worried about putting the feet outside the bas bar and sound post. So I designed the bridge with the same width at the feet as the previous bridge but with a wider top. Having the sympathetic strings attached to the tailpiece also meant that they needed to be a bit higher in the bridge than what is commonly seed on d'amores. I managed to get OK clearance between the playing stings although it is a bit tight for the middle strings. The sympathetic strings are cheap electric guitar strings of different gauges. The two lower ones are wound.

  

After breaking 3 top gut strings in as many hours I modified the tailpiece to accept a fine tuner and went with a Goldbrokat 24 gauge.

For the first project we will be playing the Telemann triple concerto for flute, oboe d'amore and viola d'amore so I will be tuning in fourths with D on top. The fourth string then becomes a B and using a violin D string turned out to work well - after shaving back the silk at the peg end. 

All in all I am very pleased with the result. It sounds better than the instrument I borrowed and is easier to play. And I learned a lot on the journey. 

[jacobsaunders]

Congratulations, a lot of good ideas

[Bo Pontoppidan]

A potential problem with this kind of head is that the peg reamer can't go all the way through, so you are very limited in the dimensions of pegs that can be used. At least for me since I have only one reamer.

I used pegs intended for 1/8 fractional violin. Even with this size pegs the peg heads are very close together. If I were to do it again I would probably make the head a bit longer - It is quite difficult to tune since you can't really grab the pegs the way I am used to. 

The fine tuners for the sympathetic strings work very well, but I have to go over the tuning several times if one or more of the strings are far off. They influence each other quite a bit. Still it is much easier than tuning them with the pegs. And the tuning of the sympathetics really has to be accurate in order for them to ring - it is immediately noticeable in the sound if they are out of tune.

[jacobsaunders]

If you can tune it in less than half an hour, it wouldn’t really be the true d’Amore experience

[LCF]

I love this thing you've built. Is that tailpiece made from bone or from bleached maple?

For your next you could consider one of these arrangements

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Double-decker

 

Remembering that you should always whittle the pegs to fit using a Swiss Army knife 

[Bo Pontoppidan]

The tailpiece is maple - from the same piece as the fingerboard. The nut is bone.

I live in Sweden and know about the old Swedish violins with sympathetic strings. The doubledecker is on my to-do list. I have made a couple of "låt-fioler" (that means tune fiddle in swedish) from  student violins by plugging the peg holes and fitting more pegs for sympathetic strings. One of them has 2 and the other 4 sympathetic strings. That is quite a tight fit without extending the head. I did extend the pegbox a bit under the scroll though. 

[LCF]

2 hours ago, Bo Pontoppidan said:

The tailpiece is maple - from the same piece as the fingerboard. The nut is bone.

I live in Sweden and know about the old Swedish violins with sympathetic strings. The doubledecker is on my to-do list. I have made a couple of "låt-fioler" (that means tune fiddle in swedish) from  student violins by plugging the peg holes and fitting more pegs for sympathetic strings. One of them has 2 and the other 4 sympathetic strings. That is quite a tight fit without extending the head. I did extend the pegbox a bit under the scroll though. 

One of the old Norwegian HF I've seen photos of originally had 2 or 3 sympathies, then had extra pegs put in at right angles on the back of the peghead for more!