Shaping Up @ The Shop

We took a trip out to the Brunkalla shop in Marengo last week to see Martin and the progress he's making on the violin.  It was great to see the rough cut top and back pieces as well as a nearly finished neck with peg box and fingerboard.

These are some of Martin's tools he uses above his bench.

And we're looking over the Schmidt Harp tailpiece that he ordered so he can make a copy in Rosewood.










Here are the front and back pieces rough cut to the pattern of a 1716 Stradivarius.

The darker piece is the Ancient Kauri for the back.

The lighter piece is the Old Growth Sitka Spruce for the top.





Both the top and the back will be roughly shaped this week using a form to guide the routing of the pieces.  From there, each will be hand shaped and tuned into their final form.  The tuning is very interesting as he uses some software to tune the frequency response so that it can be as flat as possible over the range of notes.

The next piece is the neck.  This piece is nearly done except for the shaping of the neck to match the measurements of my current violin.

The neck is also made of Ancient Kauri and is reinforced with a carbon rod and pin to give it extra strength under tension from the strings. The peg box is sized for 5 pegs and the ebony fingerboard is attached to the top.  You can see the carbon rod between the neck and the fingerboard in the shot below.

And here is the peg box and beautifully carved scroll.  This whole piece takes about 4 days to complete.

Come back for our next visit as we see the top and bottom take on its final form.