Local materials in violin making

[geerten]

Hi everyone,

Not too long ago, I made a violin out of mostly local materials. Just to honor my hometown of Bergen op Zoom (The Netherlands), and also to see what was available in the area that could be used in violin making. Historically, my region was the center of the European madder root industry, so that locally grown ingredient was used for sure in the instrument. I also employed local woods (including maple and lilac pruning wood for fittings), medieval cow bone, oak galls, shell mother of pearl, linseed oil, pine resin and yellow dyers weld pigment. In the design, elements of regional history and folklore were incorporated. The whole process of making the violin and sourcing and processing the materials was captured in a 35 minutes documentary, which can be seen in the two links below (dedicated English subtitles included). The video also reveals some special hidden features of the instrument...

part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjN-T9deGs
part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCfZ5qBw-nI

The whole creative process provided me some refreshing variation from the usual more serious making routines. Photos below show some impressions of the instrument. Enjoy! 

 

[Nick Lewis]

Thanks for sharing! I love the character in those wrinkles. I decided to embrace the local materials thing lately as well. I was inspired by reading about Hardanger makers in Norway using local lumber and inlay material. So my current build is a Hardanger with material from the PNW of the US. I don’t know what the market thinks of the idea, but this is a build for personal use so I get to call the shots. 

[geerten]

Thanks for your kind reply, Nick! Did you collect the local materials already? Please let me know your experiences, and what you decided to use. For me, the entire "BoZviool" project was great, making choices along the making process and get inspired by the materials and people who provided them. I hope this can be felt from the documentary. By the way, the lilac wood was a great substitute for ebony, almost just a hard and with a nice smell when being worked! Good luck with the Hardanger, did you start it yet?

[M Alpert]

Hey, nice project, well done!

We have also been using local spruce, maple, flamed birch, pear and linden, with plans to use also apple, plum, and lilac at least, here in Helsinki, Finland. The maple has fine flames and the spruce rather wide or uneven grains, but it seems to work pretty well acoustically, maybe not a Stradivari, but what is anyway!?

I too love lilac for the smell and density. Hard to get big straight pieces here though.

In general I would also like to see more local woods embraced by players... One can dream!

[gaseff]

Thank you for sharing.  The varnish and pigment segment is fascinating.

[gorge riam]

 Hi Geerten,

These cello pegs are made of local elder wood. Quite a hard and dens material.

Edited December 10, 2025 by gorge riam

[geerten]

Thanks for the comments!

@M Alpert Very nice to hear that you have similar experiences using local woods! Could you please show some pics if possible? Yes, it would be great if local materials would be embraced wider in the community. In contrast to your area, spruce was a bit of a problem here (see docu..). But I keep searching. Other local stuff of interest are fruit and nut woods (as you suggest) and propolis (a nice light yellow type is available here).

@gaseff really good to know you enjoyed the film. Thanks!! In the pigment and varnish segments, the chemist in me woke up (-;

[Brian in Texas]

That was a really cool presentation, thank you for sharing this. The violin certainly has a lot of personality, especially with the carved figurehead.

[geerten]

Thank you Brian, for watching the video and for your heartwarming words! I like your channel too, just subscribed to it!

[geerten]

2 hours ago, gorge riam said:

 Hi Geerten,

These cello pegs are made of local elder wood. Quite a hard and dens material.

Wow, nice pegs!!

[LCF]

11 hours ago, gorge riam said:

 Hi Geerten,

These cello pegs are made of local elder wood. Quite a hard and dens material.

Do you mean elder as in elderberry, sambucus ?

[gorge riam]

@LCF

Yes, sambucus.

Edited December 11, 2025 by gorge riam

[Randall The Restorer]

Beautiful work, geerten!

I was born and raised in Canada.

My uncles served in the Canadian Army in Europe, during World War 2. One of them died in action.

The Canadian Army played a crucial role in liberating Bergen-op-Zoom during the autumn of 1944 as part of the costly Battle of the Scheldt. The Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery is the final resting place for nearly a thousand Canadians who died securing this vital waterway.

If you want to make another violin that honours those young Canadians, I would be happy to send you some tonewood from Native Canadian trees that I harvested myself. It will be a gift of friendship. 

Yours truly,

Randy O'Malley 

Mississauga, Ontario, CANADA

 

[geerten]

Thank you for your comment, Randall. We further discussed this in reply to your PM!

[AnnaMiri]

Hello, thank you, very interesting about the lilac fingerboard, I will definitely try that. I am also trying local materials, I am from Val Badia, Südtirol (north Italy), were I have enough spruce which I use for the top, and its resin for varnish. For the fittings I am trying harder woods, I made a tail piece from prunus mahaleb which I took from a more arid region (Vinschgau). Slowly experimenting more