It’s been a few days since my last post.  I actually worked on a few little odds and ends since the last post but nothing significant as I was waiting for my calipers to arrive so I could check the thickness of the strips I was trying to bend.  It turned out that my previous attempts had been on strips that were 3mm to 4mm thick rather than the 1mm to 1.25mm that I expect to be bending for the real violin ribs.  So, I planed one of the strips down a bit, to about 1.75mm and gave it another go.  The bending went much more smoothly!

I made a couple of other changes in my bending process also.  On the advice of many, from the internet, I heated my bending iron hot enough so that water didn’t just boil when it hit the iron but rather it beaded up and danced off the iron.  But, you don’t want the iron so hot that it scorches the wood so make sure and let the iron heat up for a good bit of time and test on a scrap piece of wood for scorching.

The other significant, though simple, change I made was to use a piece of parchment paper between my aluminum bending strap and the wood strip I’m bending.  This is done to protect the wood from being stained when it rubs against the aluminum.

As you can see in the picture and in the video, the results were good.  When I was done, I thought the fit was probably close to good enough to glue.  However, I discovered the next morning that either the curve had changed or the board had shrunk and it no longer fit tightly at both ends.  Next time, when I get done bending the strip, I’m going to try clamping it into the c-bout on the form over night to see if that helps.

One thing I learned along the way was to NOT try to use carpet tape to hold the strips down while planing.  I had read this recommendation on several forums but it didn’t work out well at all for me!  When I got the strips down to a little over 1.5mm thick, I found that the adhesive on the tape was just too strong and the strips would break as I tried to remove them from the tape.  Maybe there’s some brand that isn’t as permanent, but the standard double sided cloth carpet tape that I tried was a disaster… fortunately only on scrap wood!

Here’s today’s video.  Enjoy!

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Today was all about learning how to bend wood.  I need to pretty much know what I’m doing before I start trying to bend the real violin rib wood because there’s basically jut enough to do the violin without much room for mistakes or scrap.

So, I started the day by ripping off a few 20 inch thin strips of spruce from the long 2×4 I had to buy the other day.  These strips will also serve as stock for the rib linings that I’ll be cutting next week.  I had cut several different thicknesses of the strips and started out trying to bend the thickest of the bunch… why?  I have no idea, but it turned out to be a mistake.  Later, after many failed attempts, I cut a piece much closer to the thickness of the ribs.  I had some success when combining this thinner piece with a modified approach to the bending process.

The real breakthrough came when I got some advice from amateur luthiers  Kathy and Ray (THANK YOU!!!) who suggested:

1. Use a cut down piece of aluminum flashing as a bending strap.
2. Don’t wet the wood too much.

I also read in “The Art of Violin Making” that you should use a damp rag just to get some steam into the wood but that the actual bending should be done with wood against iron.

In the end, after about 6 hours and many intermediate failures, Success!  I managed to make a very tight bend without a single split or tare.

Here’s the video showing the whole process I went through today.  The right way is shown near the end.

FYI, I might consider buying one of the stainless steel straps sold by luthier tool shops to avoid the possible blemishes caused by the aluminum rubbing off on the wood.

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Well, it is the 5th day since I started but I really didn’t do anything on the violin other than square up one edge on the form.  I did get the wood in though, as well as a few other things that I’ll need.

I spent a little time going over some of the things I’ve had to get for the project so far and covered them in this video.  You also get to be tortured by me struggling with some exercises on the E-String.

On the violin itself, I’m at a stand still for a couple days.  The next step is to get the rib stock down to about 1mm thick.  To do that, I’ll need a set of calipers which have been ordered and are due in on Monday.  In the mean time I’m going to practice bending wood and make some tools I’ll be needing.

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Today’s task was to cut to shape the corner and top and bottom blocks.  The first step was to plane the blocks to be flush with the violin building form.  Next, I transferred the pattern onto the blocks.  Once I’d neatened up the pattern using a french curve, I did the cutting on a band saw.  The last step, not seen in the video, was about two hours of sanding and checking to make sure that all the block edges were square with the bottom of the form.

If I ever do this again, I think I’ll try to keep the band saw a bit further from the cut line.  I’ll use small diameter sanding wheels on the drill press to get down to the final shape and by doing so, keep everything square as I go.

Here’s a video showing most of what I did.  Oh, and my apologies… I did not practice violin today so no tortuous background music

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Today’s task should have been simple.  It should not have involved a trip to the lumber yard and another to the hardware store.  However, it turned out not to be simple and did indeed involve a trip the the lumber yard and another to the hardware store.  On the upside though, I ended up getting a really awesome back cutting saw and several clamps that were on sale.

Today was all about getting the form cut out and the corner and end blocks put in place… mission accomplished.  Check the video:

The trip to the lumber yard was required because it turned out that I didn’t have a piece of wood suitable for the corner blocks or end pieces.  So, for the lack of about 8 inches of wood I had to go buy a 16ft spruce 2×4.  Oh well, the “scrap will come in handy I’m sure!  At the lumber yard they cut the board in half for me using a very nice back cutting saw.  When I commented about it I was told that they sold them inside the office… They did indeed sell them, in fact, the sold one to me

The trip to the hardware store was required because the clamps I had were either an inch too short or 4ft too long.  As it turned out, they were having a “Hot Deal” on the clamps I needed and have been wanting for a while anyway.  So, it all turned out for the best (with the possible exception of my wallet).

Cutting out the form went well.  The only thing that I’d give more thought to on a 2nd go around would be how to cut the slots for the corner blocks.  Cutting the slots with a 1/8 inch band saw made it impossible to achieve parallel, straight, or perpendicular cuts.  This along with difficulty cutting the blocks themselves using a table saw and miter saw took a lot more time than expected.  If I had it to do over again (Stradivarius part deux?) I might think about changing blades on the band saw and cutting the blocks and “entry” slots on the form with a much wider blade.

So, anyway, while it did take about twice as much time as expected (what doesn’t other than hot water in the microwave?) it’s done for the day.  Tomorrow, after the glue is dried, I’ll trim down the corner and end blocks, mark the pattern and cut out the last of the form.

Enjoy!

joe

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Today started out with the plan being to cut out the inside mold for the violin.  It didn’t turn out that way.  After spending close to an hour installing the new 1/8 inch blade on the band saw and getting everything squared up I rough-cut out the form but didn’t go back and finish the job.  Instead, I spent an hour or so trying to figure out how to use my new sharpener to sharpen Plane Irons.  I managed to come up with a system that works better than doing it completely free hand, but still not close to perfect.  After just having bought the WorkSharp WS2000, I’m still hesitant to go out and spend a bunch more money on a different sharpening system so I’ll keep trying until I succeed, run out of patience, or run out of Plane Iron.

Before I did the rough cut of the mold,  I jury-rigged a dust collector system for the band saw using my shop-vac.  The system, as crude as it was, worked great!

The big success of the day was that I build a wood bending iron out of a stained glass soldering iron, a 3/4 ID thick walled brass riser, and a few other components.  It includes a dimmer switch which presumably will allow me to control the temperature, or at least the rate at which the Iron heats.

A lesser accomplishment, though still time consuming was purchase of all the parts I need for both the elastic band clamps for the bouts as well as the parts for 20 luthier clamps (more on that later).

Finally, today was a violin lesson day.

Here’s the video with me playing in the background to torture you

Oh, by the way, I have a huge, infected, nasty looking blister from all the planing I did yesterday… I may have the mind of a carpenter, but I have the hands of an engineer.

joe

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I got the bug and decided to try to build a violin.  I’ll be using “Violin Making An Illustrated Guide for the Amateur” by Bruce Ossman as a guide.

Today, I got done getting the form pieces down to dimension, got all the holes drilled, and the form pattern transferred onto the wood.  Tomorrow, I plan to use the band saw to cut out the form.

Here’s a video showing what I got done today and how I did it.  Be prepared though… It also features me playing in the background.  I’m still a beginner so it ain’t pretty.

Enjoy!

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