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Adam, I was in France for some weeks this summer and did some busking with the violin. I liked it. When you´re alone in a city it might be lonely, but when you busk, you´re part of it. Thats next summers project. Drive around in Europe in an old van and play number 1 violin in the streets. Visiting family and friends and sometimes stay in the forest for some days learning new tunes and reading books.
Awesome. Building your own violin and taking it to the streets is about as D.I.Y. as you can get without being a straight-up caveman who kills what he eats (although it sounds like you might be thinking about trying that out too!)
If you bring a camera along on your adventure, I’d love to see you “blog it.”
One of the most amazing, stirring, musical performances, of any kind, that I’ve ever witnessed was seeing a guy parked in front of a church in Krakow, during one of those lonely solo visits to a strange city, TEARING his way through the Art of Fugue. I only had one day in the city and had a long list of stuff I wanted to do and check out, but I was absolutely jaw-on-the-ground transfixed and just stood there watching him for nearly an hour.
What instrument did he play the art of the fugue. Its an amazing piece of music but I tend to go all crazy when I hear it. I lost a version with different instrument setups (strings and wind. Never more than 4 a time) That was a bit easyer to listen to.
I already kill my own tomatoes, salad and fruit and I wish I had more space to grow my own food. I dont like killing animals, so meat is more or less on its way out of my diet.
Oh, duh, that’s the most important detail of my anecdote, and I forgot to include it. It was an accordion, which is what really blew my mind. Never seen anyone play such full-on virtuoso material on an accordion, and with full-tilt raging power to boot. Think of the energy that bursts out of the first few Camaron/Paco records, or some other equally speaker-blowing record. It was like that. Contrapunctus 9 was like a freight train tearing through that cobblestoned square. Truly stunning.
Yeah, I dig Art of Fugue for organ or sometimes piano (I’ve got a nice one by some old Russian lady, Tatiyana something…) Larger ensemble arrangements don’t appeal to me as much.
Heard Andras Schiff play one of my favorite tunes from the 3 Part Inventions on the radio during breakfast today, and my eyes welled up from sheer morning gladness at the brim, as Frost would say.
I am so glad you are posting this. I have wanted to make a violin for a long time, but haven't had the time. Now I can do it vicariously through your reports.
He-he. I hope I can live up to your optimistic view. Its not going to be step by step building thread. Just some photos. There are many building blogs by pro builders out there on the net.
The back is one piece higly figured european maple. I have read , so I know that when building my first violin, I shouldnt use wood like that. Its to complicated to work with. But since I´m kinda stupid, very ignorant and a complete sucker for one piece higly figured maple violin backs, well, I decided to use this piece.
First the chunk is sawn more or less in size and with the drum sander taken down to 16mm thickness. Next the thing is sawn out with the band saw...
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Next step was to chisel the edge. 5mm thick, 10mm wide (7mm wide in the C) Be carefull when chiseling curly maple. The grain is going everywhere. Be slow.
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So here I´ve started ´diggin in´ Using the templates you can see lying around on the top left as guides. You can also see that a small knot has shown up on the surface. Lets see how that devellops. I really like this photo.
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Yes, you have to sculp both sides. If not, the back and belly would be 15mm thick. I think it would be difficult to make it sound and even more difficult to hold it because of the weight. We will get there soon.
Here´s the outside of the back rough finished and ready for purfling. As you can see, the knot is still there. It wont disappear. I will take the decission what to do when the back has been hollowed out. If its not looking like something that´ll fall out, then it´ll stay. This violin is not an order. If it had been so, most probably I would have had to make another back. People are getting really picky nowadays. I dont mind that you can see that wood comes from trees.
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So here I´ve routed the 1,3mm channel for the purfling and below you can see my hands bending the purfling on my supersimple bending iron that I also used for bending the sides. Its made of a 25mm iron tube that I found. Then I went to the chinese store and bought a 60 watt soldering iron ( 4,-€), which I crunched with a hammer and took out the element. The element I put inside the tube, I plugged both ends with aluminium paper. And here we go. It works the best upright. Then you can find the part that has the right temperature. The further up, the hotter it gets.
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which I crunched with a hammer and took out the element.
I love this improvisation - I keep telling students that you have to use what you have around. Good on ya - I almost feel like posting some of my past and present violin stuff reading this thread. Are you going to tune or weigh the plates?
I will tune, weigh, tap, sing and hum. I think Strobel says around F on the back, and D for the top, but I cant remember what the weight should be and its still to early to worry about that and besides, I´m not going to be to religious about numbers and letters.
Well, here you have the back with purfling on.
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So, Here´s the back turned upside down. The holes you see, I´ve drilled in my drillpress with a 5mm stop. So when I´ve scooped away all the wood, the back will have a thickness of around 5mm. Way to thick, but better go slow.
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So here I´ve done the the first part of the digging. There´s still a long way to go. You can see the thickness I would like to achieve drawn with a pensil.
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I know some makers used one piece backs, but did any violin makers use one piece tops also? Just curious as I know some early guitars had one piece tops.
Looks good. What final graduations are you shooting for? (edit) oh I see them.
In the very end, I´ll take the decission. Just like in guitarbuilding, I think its important not to get to fixed on thickness. It depends so much on the character of the wood. crossgrain stiffness, weight and taptone is what tells the most.
I dont know of any violins with one piece bellys, but I can imagine that some dude out there has tryed it. What a pleasure it must be to cut, plane and scrape a one piece belly.
The one piece back is mostly because of esthetics and then I didnt have to joint and join a heavily figured piece of maple.
So here is how it looks now. Almost finished. Its weighing 100 grams and will try to remove some ,more 6 -7 grams. As you can see, I´m playing with light. The violin is much more a sculpture than a guitar and so its also more interesting taking pictures of it.
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One more of the back. Its now on its final thickness. Weighs 94 grams and main resonance is just under F. Thats all very correct. The outer edge is not finished and wont be done untill later. I´m happy with the inner edge, but the corners..... I didnt know what to do with them, so thats the way they look now
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It was an accordion, which is what really blew my mind. Never seen anyone play such full-on virtuoso material on an accordion, and with full-tilt raging power to boot. Think of the energy that bursts out of the first few Camaron/Paco records, or some other equally speaker-blowing record. It was like that. Contrapunctus 9 was like a freight train tearing through that cobblestoned square. 
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