fiddle scroll | Bluefiddle's West Wind Strings

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Five-string Scroll Carving

Step by step progress

I finally got back to the five-string. Things have been hectic. The boys are in New Jersey, this week, and the daughter is back in Switzerland, so I spent today trying to carve this scroll. This is the hardest wood I have ever carved for a fiddle scroll– not in the least like Maple, which is tough, but not so difficult to carve.

I had left the scroll partially carved, and the neck roughly shaped. Pilot holes are in place. rough-cuts made to outline the scroll.

So I completed most of the neck shape and temporarily glued the fingerboard to the neck.

Then I went to work, shaping the neck and fingerboard as a unit, and continuing to shape the scroll:

scroll carving 2 — Carefully carving away the excess wood around the eye of the scroll.

Scroll carving 3 — Trying to work both sides the same way, so that the finished result will be symmetrical.

scroll carving 4 pegbox — Beginning the pegbox. The narrow gouge gives me more control and better penetration into the extremely hard wood.

Scroll carving 5 pegbox — Deepening the pegbox and beginning the outer fluting.

You can see that I have begun undercutting the turns of the scroll, and chamfering the edges, but there is a long way left to go. Monday is a holiday, and I intend to spend it working on this instrument, so perhaps I will have more to show next week.

Thanks for looking.

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Tag: fiddle scroll

5-string Progress #7: Scroll carving

Five-string Scroll Carving

Step by step progress