No Strings Attached

The violin body and neck have been married up this week and as of this writing, there are two coats of varnish on it.  We expect to see the finished product towards the end of this week.  That said, there are many parts to still be added to the violin before it can be called finished.  And once it is finished, there are a few essential things which are needed to make it whole.

I posted about fittings several weeks back.  If you remember, we got some special pegs which include some planetary gears inside of them so that they will act as geared tuners rather than friction pegs. Martin got around to fitting them in and trimming them down to size.

Above are the pegs inserted prior to trimming.  The shape of the pegs require the knob side to be slightly bigger than the opposite side.  There are counter clockwise pegs (left) and clockwise pegs (right) to make them turn the same way as if they were friction pegs.  To the right is after they have gone through the saw to be cut down to the proper length. Below you see the final fitted pegs in the peg box.  A small amount of glue will be applied to keep them in place.














I have to admit that 5 pegs look a little odd when you're so used to seeing only 4.

Here are the remaining pieces which need to be fitted.  The two small dark blocks are the nut and the saddle.  The nut which sits at the top of the fingerboard, determines the height of the strings above the fingerboard.  The saddle goes at the bottom of the body and is what the tailgut rests on between the tailpiece and the end button.  The bridge will need to be thinned out so it can resonate.  It holds the strings above the body just in front of the tailpiece.  The small dowel will be the sound post.  It is held in place purely by friction and must be fitted just right or it won't have the freedom to resonate the sound from the strings into the body cavity.  The ends of the sound post must be cut at an angle to perfectly match the interior of the body so it can be held in place.

Once those pieces are done, then the only other pieces to add are the rest of the fittings.  The chin rest just needs to be clamped on.  The end button is inserted into a hole in the bottom block.  The tailpiece will be hand carved out of rosewood as a replica of the one in ebony in the picture above.  Martin is completing that this week between coats of varnish.  Then just add strings and we're done!

Of course, no violin is complete without a bow. Bows are very particular and generally you have to go try a bunch of them to see which will sound the best.  But I found a special bow made especially for 5 string violins.  Codabow makes carbon fiber bows for string instruments and they come in a variety of different weights and finishes.  One of their bows is the Codabow Joule and it is specially weighted to have more weight in the tip of the bow to help you pull with pressure on the low C string.  I decided to give this a try and it really works!  Martin likes it even more than his own bow.  

And finally, we need a case.  I really deliberated long and hard on what kind of case of use for this special violin.  Do I go with a high tech carbon fiber for protection or a more traditional suspension case.  After searching high and low, I found the perfect case.  The Negri Lord case has a beautiful wood trim in the interior which I felt was very unique. The exterior is leather and should do well in protecting this investment.  

But finding this case wasn't so easy.  Negri is in Spain and coincident with my search, they discontinued exporting it to the US & Canada.  After trying some online retailers to no avail, I found a local guy who happened to be selling one privately.

The only challenge with a case like this is that the compartment where the scroll and peg box sits is shaped rather than just being the width and length of the case.  With the extended peg box for the 5th peg, we weren't sure it would fit.  We tried Martin's 5 string and it was very tight, however, his chin rest clamps are more off centered creating a bump on the side which forced the violin even more forward. He thinks with the type of chin rest I selected it should fit, but with a pretty snug fit.

So that should be all we need except for the strings.  We will use D'Addario Helicore strings to start with and see how they sound.  The next post will be when it's all done and ready to come home!