My Neck of the Woods

Martin is away on a much deserved vacation this week so no new progress to report.  But I thought it would be interesting to show the process of creating the neck piece including the peg box and carving of the scroll.

In its current form, the almost complete neck piece is pictured below with Martin holding it upside down.

But it actually started just as a big block of Ancient Kauri.  This shows the entire sequence of steps it takes to build this piece over a 4 day period.

This shows the raw block with the neck pattern laid on top.  This is traced out including the scroll pattern and then cut into the horizontal shape.

This shows the traced pattern on the block and the initial peg holes drilled out.

Next, is the addition of a carbon rod to the neck to improve its strength under tension.  Just a hidden touch of technology to improve the overall performance and longevity of the instrument.

Here is the block with the carbon rod ready to be inlaid.

The rod is epoxied into a dado groove that will sit underneath the fingerboard.

The next step gives the block some initial shape.  Following the pattern traced out, the block is cut horizontally to give the neck, peg box, and scroll its first definition.

The next sequence shows the pattern tracing, peg box carve out, and initial vertical cuts.  

The scroll top and the peg box are traced out.

So is the bottom of the scroll and peg box.

The same is done on the opposite end where the neck is joined to the body of the violin.

Next, the peg box is carved out.  I have no idea how this is done so cleanly, and all done with the right angles and depth.

Cross sections are then cut out out to define the initial width of the neck short of the scroll which has to be carved out to reveal the spiral of the scroll.

And now begins the extremely delicate part of carving the scroll.  I can't even imagine how nerve wracking this would be as one wrong move and you start all over again!

And there you have a finely carved scroll and peg box.  Pretty amazing piece of work if you ask me.

The next sequence transforms the flat portions of the neck and scroll into their proper shapes.  

The flat neck is carved away to give its rounder shape.

While this is the initial thickness, it will be further reduced to match the exact measurements of my current violin so that it will feel identical to me when I play.  

The familiar indentations are carved into the back of the peg box...

... and also to the scroll

Here's a look just prior to sanding.

And voila!  The finished scroll and peg box!

The fingerboard is next.

This is made of ebony and is a standard 4 string width fingerboard.  As I have described previously, Martin's design uses standard string spacing, but pushes the strings further out to the edge of the fingerboard to fit in the extra string.  This gives the neck a familiar feel while maintaining traditional string spacing.  The bottom of the fingerboard is then carved out to give it the proper thickness.

And then it is attached to the neck.  Additionally, a carbon pin is inserted from the bottom of the neck piece to hold it all in place.

And there you have it.  A completed neck piece.  There will be some fine adjustments such as the tapering of the neck to match what I'm used to and the fitting of the pegs into the peg holes.  But once the body of the violin is finished, the two pieces can then be married together for life.

Come back next week as we see what additional progress has been made on the top and bottom pieces with the purfling, as well as the sides with the ribs.

In Fine Form

This week's visit out to the Brunkalla shop found the top and bottom pieces shaped and ready for purfling to be added. The side pieces are also sitting in the form and attached to the corner blocks. Everything is coming together quite nicely and we can expect the violin to be finished up by mid-May. Our pegs have also been delivered so the only part of the fittings still needed is the tailpiece which Martin will make himself.

Here I am holding the top (left) and bottom (right) pieces. The grain on both is just beautiful. As you can see, I'm quite happy with the way they have turned out.

If you remember, a week ago, these were just rough cut into the general shape.  A lot of material had to be removed to create the right shape.  Martin uses a tracing router machine to get a rough shape on both the top and the bottom and then the rest is done by hand.

Here is what the two pieces looked like a week ago.  You can see how thick they were with just the shape cut out.  

And here is the top mounted next to the tracing form after the rough routing.

This is the bottom piece during the tracing process. 

Here are the cleaned up top and bottom pieces after the tracing is done and then sanded.  

Next came the cutting of the groove for the purfling. 

Here's a close up of the initial groove cut with the Dremel tool.

Here we see the groove widened to receive the purfling.

After some more fine sanding and fitting and tuning, we get a beautiful set of top and bottom pieces.  These are still flat on the underside and those will need to be carved out and fine tuned.  When it is all done, these pieces will be 1/16 of an inch thickness throughout.  

Come back next week as we go back and show exactly how the neck was made.

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.

How Fitting?

One of the decisions I have to make is what type of violin fittings to use for the 5-string fiddle.  Fittings are the accessories that go with the main body of the violin to complete it.  These include the pegs, tailpiece, chin rest, and end pin.  Now fittings come in all kinds of materials / finishes / styles, so narrowing this down to a nice complementary set is a bit of a challenge.   Just Google "violin fittings" and you can see how vast the choices are for this.  You can find fittings in ebony, boxwood, rosewood, teak, tetul, mahogany, maple, olive wood, paddock, pernambuco, tulip, snakewood, crabwood, teneo, and tigerwood to name a few of the wood options.  There are also composite materials available as well.

So how do we narrow this down?  Well, we do have some constraints which limit the choices somewhat.  First, it's a 5-string violin so we know we need 5 pegs and a tailpiece which is made for 5 strings.  Most of what you can find is made for traditional 4 strings, so 90% of what is available isn't going to work.  Also, choosing whether to go with a traditional black ebony look or not is a basic decision I have to make to help narrow down the decision.  My current violin has boxwood fittings which generally match the overall color of the instrument.  I lean towards not doing the black ebony look, but the Wittner 5-string tailpiece that Martin usually uses for his 5-string violins only come in black and they are composite material as shown to the right.

The pegs are also a bit more complicated if I want to go with the latest technology.  Yes, there is some technology in this space which seems a little odd given that it looks like just a wood peg.  Guitars and other modern string instruments have had metal geared tuners for many years, but the metal gears would seriously alter the traditional look of a violin.  Well, a couple of designs have emerged in recent years which hide the gears either in the head of the peg or in the shaft.  In essence, the shaft does not turn in the peg box like a traditional peg which is turned to tune but then must stay in place via friction at the correct pitch.  These new type of pegs stay fixed in the peg box and then an internal shaft turns via geared increments so the turning is very smooth and very precise.  There are two types of these pegs on the market.

The first type is the Wittner FineTune peg.  It has the gearing inside the peg head and as such, must be made of composite material just like their tailpiece.  They also only come in black.  So this is an option if I go with a black ebony color scheme.





The second type is the Knilling Perfection Planetary peg.  These have the gearing imbedded in the shaft  instead of the peg head.  The nice thing about these is that it allows an actual wood head to be mounted on the peg.  These come in composite black, black ebony, or rosewood.  They come in a Hill (nub) or a Swiss (plain) style.




I really like the idea of these geared pegs and I like the option of being able to still achieve the look of wood pegs, but with the latest technology too.  So the Knilling Perfection seems like the best choice to achieve the form, function, and look I want.  I decided to go with the Swiss style as I think the more traditional Hill style in 5 pegs might look a little odd.  So this pretty much nails down the type of wood as Rosewood since the pegs only come in that for a wood look.

Now that we have determined Rosewood as our wood material, we can narrow our search for 5 string tailpieces to Rosewood tailpieces.  I found a nice website that has just about every possible type of fitting you can want.  As expected, most of the tailpieces are 4-string tailpieces, but they do have some 5-string ones too.  There are French, Hill, Baroque, and then a very unique looking Schmidt Harp style that was very intriguing to me.  The top of the tailpiece is shaped like the top of the harp giving the lower strings more string length which is supposed to enhance the vibration.  Sounds logical to me.  Given they have a model in Rosewood, I chose to go with it.

The chin rest is actually more straightforward since they come in the same types of wood as the other fittings.  However, there are so many shapes, sizes, mounts, and positions that you could literally customize the exact feel of the chin rest against your chin.  Given that I've been playing my current violin for 40+ years, I figured I'll just go for a very familiar feel and try to match the type of chin rest I use now.  It is a Guarneri style and it comes with a center Hill mount.  

So these are my selections for fittings.  I asked Martin to go ahead and order them, but unfortunately, the tail piece is not in stock.  But Martin said he'll go ahead and order an ebony one and then custom make one in Rosewood that matches it.  Nice to have your own luthier be that flexible!  I think it will look quite stunning when complete. 

Next week, we will show how the boards are shaping up.