Happy Halloween

[Will Turner]

Here’s a violin skeleton for the holiday.

[Will Turner]

Plates were too thick and the edges were also too thick.   

[Rue]

Halloween cuteness! 

[Dr. Mark]

3 hours ago, Will Turner said:

Plates were too thick and the edges were also too thick.   

Are you saying that you didn't like the tone?  Or the weight? 

I'm asking because I have a rather heavy violin built with Cannone-inspired dimensions - arching and thicknesses on a small model - with open Sainton-inspired f's, that I like a great deal.  I can't comment on whether it carries - sound production seems to be right at the front so may not be getting 'into' the instrument, if that makes sense.  Still ...

...and after all this I may have to adjust the neck because of a typical amateur oversight.

What got me to try this was:

a) lighter violins are standard and seem sometimes to be an irrational obsession.  It makes sense for long practice sessions, but is a heavier violin really a problem for an hour or two performance with breaks, or is it missing something in tone or volume that we accept as sufficient because of a lack of counter examples?  Well, it's for me, not for sale, and I don't mind;

b) I wanted to experiment a bit with thicker plates, and with Paganini advocating un-regraduated del Gesu's and with the Cannone as an example, why not?;

c) I had just made a smaller mold, a bit less than 14" but I wanted to maintain volume, and with the thicker plates - I didn't want to increase the belly or back arch height so I raised the arch starting from just inside the purfling on both plates;

d) I made a seat-of-the-pants decision because the analysis is complicated and uncertain (and my tarot cards said to go with it): with thicker plates I'd expect less deflection per unit pressure, possibly causing some muffling/choking so I went with more open f's.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What do you mean by 'too' thick?

Recovering from last night's glass of Plum Gekkeikan and being very wordy.

[Will Turner]

56 minutes ago, Dr. Mark said:

Are you saying that you didn't like the tone?  Or the weight? 

While I do weigh my violins as I make them (Rib garland, etc) I use that only as a loose set of guidelines (Violin Parley) and the tone becomes king.     The plate thicknesses on that particular violin was graduated (as an earlier instrument in my learning journey) around a 3mm suggested beginning graduation.    Fine for a student violin, but as my understanding and feeling of working with the wood has progressed, my last violin had a 2.2mm top based on the density/stiffness and tone response.     Instead of sticking close to the original beginner graduations, I'm going to take this down considering the actual response of the wood.

It was a beautiful exterior, but not to a standard that I wanted to reach before I'd even consider selling it.   Not even sure I'd donate it at it's prior performance.

Also the edges were like 5mm finished rather than "starting".   I must have had my marking gauge set wrong as this was even after doing the purfling and 7/10 gouge 2mm away from the edges and rounding them.  

As I'm going to save the varnish, I'll have to use a large sanding board to sand down from the interior side to the desired edge thickness and then use my finger planes and scrapers to get the thicknesses down (but keeping an eye on the sound post and f-hole areas).

I'd picked up a much better marking guage between that and my last project, probably why my last violin turned out so much better on the edges.  A Clarke Brothers brass wheel gauge.

[Andrew tkinson]

On 10/31/2025 at 1:17 PM, Will Turner said:

Here’s a violin skeleton for the holiday.

Hello Will, I know I am a bit late for Halloween but here is a picture of a small box I made a long time, maybe more than 14 years ago, its still not finished! He is made from a scrap of the big log of sycamore/maple I got from the local churchyard

As you can see the inside is not finished but he makes a good place to store my skull plectrum