I decided that I would prefer to purfle first, then graduate, on this plate. Maple is much tougher than spruce, and I wanted maximum mobility as I cut the purfling slot, as well as avoiding any danger to the rest of the indtrument when forcing the purfling into the glue-filled slot. It can require a great deal of pressure.
I used the purfling marker to trace out the location of the purfling slot.
Then I began incising the sides of the slot, and removing the waste wood, with a purfling pick.
I always forget, between instruments, just how tough the European maple is. I always find that I have to take breaks once in a while, and allow my hands to rest.
I always find the back purfling to be physically difficult, but it is easier to do clean work.
Back purfling slot complete.
After cutting the slot and removing the waste wood, I double-check the width ans depth of the slot by inserting a scrap of purfling into the slot, and dragging it around the entire slot, so that I know the purfling will fit cleanly.
Then I use a bending iron to bend the purfling, I cut the miters for the “Bee-stings”, and I insert the purfling, dry, to get a perfect fit.
Purfling installed dry.
Before I start gluing, I also take time to mark the edge of what will be the “crest” of the edgework, so that I don’t gouge too deeply or too wide, when cutting the channel. After gluing, it is difficult to get the pencil to mark on the wood, if it is either damp or glue-coated.
If you look closely, you can see the pencilled-in crest marks.
Finally, I lift out each purfling segment, one at a time, and slip hot hide glue under the purfling, then quickly press the purfling back down into the slot. I use a hard plastic roller to help force the purfling deeply into the slot.
The purfling is glued in place, and I can cut the channel now.
In this case, I chose to work on the graduation, next. I did not get it done, but I am within an hour of completion. Then I can conplete the plate, add the label, remove the mold, and close the corpus.
Graduation in progress.
I will also complete the channel and the inner edgework, before removing the mold and installing the plate. But it is getting there…
Vacation is a hard time to get things done, because the people take higher priority, and everything eats up the time. (Ah, well…always good to spend time with family.)
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The outside arching for the front plate is essentially complete, though there will be a lot of scraping, later on. I began the graduation (inside arching) of the front plate about the same time as I took off and “sprinted for the finish line” with the “Plowden” Guarneri-model violin (see recent posts), but all I accomplished was that the center of the plate is about the right thickness– everywhere else it was still way too thick.
So! Back to work! You can see (below) that the f-holes have been laid out and deeply incised, which allowed me to accomplish the last stage of the front arching (explained in an earlier post.) Now I need to carefully carve away the interior, until all the plate is the thickness I want it to be…which varies by region, all over the plate. I have to be very careful to check certain areas with a caliper before I begin to carve, or I may easily go too far and make the plate too thin. (Voice of sad experience….) The area around the lower ends of the f-holes are very likely victims of this error, so I try to check regularly, and avoid carving away too much in those areas, especially.
The outer arching of the small viola is complete, not counting the purfling channel.
Side view of the small viola’s arching, before purfling and edgework is done.
Inside arching of the small viola. The Graduation is complete. Next, I need to cut out the f-holes, and add the bass-bar. I do realize the corners are too long…I will trim them later.
Coffee Stain
One thing I decided on this instrument was that I should begin the coffee staining very early, so that, ifthere is any distortion, due to the wetting of the wood, I can correct it before the plates go on the garland. In this photo, it is hard to see how much the grain is raised, but, those wide summer grains of the Sitka Spruce are all swelled up like corduroy!
Accentuated grain lines, due to coffee stain.
I will let it dry, and then gently scrape it smooth again. The issue, here, is that the summer grain swells more than the winter reeds, but when we scrape the wood, the summer reeds compress, while the winter reeds resist the blade and are cut away. The result is that the summer reeds are already raised, even before I wet it down and deliberately raise the grain, before leveling it again.
Things remaining:
When the plate is nearly perfect all over, I will finish cutting out the f-holes, and finish their edges as well as I can. I nearly always see something later that I have missed, so I just accept the fact that I will be making corrections right up until the time I begin varnishing. The same thing applies to the scroll. It will never be “perfect”, and I accept that.
I will lay out and fit the bass-bar, trying for an air-tight fit between the bass bar and the inside of the front plate. I install it using hot hide glue and clamps, but will trim it to the proper shape after the glue is dry.
After the bass-bar is fully completed, I round the inner edges of the front plate, so that it is ready to install on the garland.
Post Script:
All of the above was accomplished three weeks ago, before we left on vacation, so it should have been published then, too…but I kept thinking I would get a little more done before we left, so it simply did not happen.
We are back, and progress is once again happening, so I will post more in a day or two.
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Last time, I had traced and cut out the top plate, and actually, I began the work on it, thinning the plate to the desired arching height– but that is when I discovererd that there was a bark inclusion that extended right through the upper bouts. So, for those “sharp-eyed” among you, who notice that the grain has changed; Yep. It surely has! Too bad…I liked the grain of the spruce in the plate I first chose, but it turns out it was just a little too interesting.
So, on this plate, all I have done is the outer arching and the layout and incision of the f-holes. After completing the arching, but before final scraping, I laid out the distance from the upper edge of the plate to the “stop” line (where the bridge will stand) at 195 mm, then laid out the distance between the upper eyes at 42 mm. I used a plastic template that I made years ago (cut out of an old flexible face-shield– the kind welders use when they are grinding steel) to lay out the shape of the holes, then incised them deeply with a thin knife. They would have been virtually invisible in the photos, so I traced them again with a sharp pencil after incising them, so that you could see them in these photos.
Arching complete, f-holes laid out and incised.
Arching: Final Check
Next I checked the arching by sighting edge-ways at the plate, to see whether the main stem of each f-hole is fairly parallel to the rib-plane. Usually I find that I have left the arching a little too “puffy” around the lower stem and lower eye area of the f-holes and need to plane away a few more strokes to get the stems lined up. I don’t think the looks of the f-holes are the main issue, here– the shape of the arching is fairly critical to the sound, as best I can understand, and this is just a “marker” for me to check.
Checking to see that f-holes are aligned with rib-plane.
Obviously, this alignment is something I have to do before I try to complete the inside carving, or there might not be sufficient thickness left to do the final adjustment. I try to estimate and get this area as close to correct as possible before laying out the f-holes, but I have had to adjust them at least a little, every time, so far.
After I am satisfied with the overall shape of the arching, I use scrapers to reduce all the lines and ridges left by the finger planes into a smooth continuum.
Graduation: Beginning the Interior
Once I have the outside arching the way I want it, I can start on the inside, and the final graduation of the plate. I hold a pencil in my fingers so that about 9 mm protrudes onto the plate, and then run my fingers around the edges…nothing precise about it: it is just a guideline for carving. I want to leave this area untouched until the last bit when I am scraping the inside, before installing the bassbar. I use the same template that I use for the final shape of the end blocks to scribe the shape of the area to be glued to the blocks. I scribe in the corner blocks with a curved scraper that just happens to fit the shape I want. All this outer perimeter area will be left flat until the last step before installing the bassbar, and/or installing the plate on the ribs. I want just the gluing surface flat when I am ready to install the plate.
Inside carving plan.
Preparing for Graduation: Measure First!
It pays to use a caliper and check the thickness all over before beginning to carve. I do have a mental image of the desired shape of the interior, but I do not have a mental map of the thickness of the plate, so I measure at least the areas that already feel pretty thin to my fingers, and decide how much should come off in each area. As it turns out, this time, no areas are really borderline, but some are within 1.5 mm or so, so I will be careful around those places. I am aiming for about 3.5 mm down the middle, fairing down to 2.5 in the upper and lower flanks. and a few places 2 mm, very likely. I will try to leave some areas a little thick, where there is a likelihood of cracking, but in general, I expect this will be a pretty thin plate…the spruce is a little dense (which I have had good results with in the past), so it can stand to be a little thinner than usual.
After the inside is carved and scraped to my satisfaction, I will complete the cutting out and shaping of the f-holes, then chalk-fit and install the bassbar. I will post photos of all that.
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First mark the Crest of the channel, then cut the channel!
When I first began making fiddles, it had never occurred to me that there was a specific distance from the edge that I should aim for– I just started cutting, and eyeballed the whole edge. As a result I had some very rough-looking fiddles. Now I mark about 40% (2mm, in this case) in from the outer edge, and cut my channel so that the edge of the channel hits that mark, while the top of the purfling gets trimmed back so that it is clean and smooth.
I used two gouges to cut the channel–a small one to carefully trim back the narrow lip of wood between the purfling groove and the marked crest, and a larger one to cut the rest of the channel.
Then Begin The Final Arching
Once the channel was relatively close all the way around, I began cutting the longitudinal arching down to the final level. I will not complete it tonight…I had two phone calls and a customer (future) show up, so that took up a bunch of time, and now it is getting late. Here’s what it looks like for now:
Cello Front Purfling Channel CutFront Lower Bass Corner
Anyway…that’s it for tonight! The Spruce cuts very easily with a small, sharp plane. I hope to complete the arching tomorrow evening.
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