Winter 2025
Over the autumn and winter I've been working every now and then on a new violin.
I started by planing the ribs to thickness. I'm using two planes: one with a normal blade and one with a toothed blade. The toothed blade helps to prevent tearing the wood. This wood has beautiful flames but the drawback is that it tears easily when you plane it. First I plane the outside lightly with the toothed blade, and go over it with the normal blade til I have a smooth finish and just lost the tooth marks but not made new tears. Then I turn it over and plane the inside using the tooth blade and the straight blade alternately, until I have got to the right thickness. Alternating the toothed and the straight blades goes quicker than just using the toothed blade. You can see the different shavings in the picture that the toothed blade and the straight blade make.
The ribs are clamped onto three thick pieces of wood on my table so that I don't have to bend over so much when I'm planing.
I started by planing the ribs to thickness. I'm using two planes: one with a normal blade and one with a toothed blade. The toothed blade helps to prevent tearing the wood. This wood has beautiful flames but the drawback is that it tears easily when you plane it. First I plane the outside lightly with the toothed blade, and go over it with the normal blade til I have a smooth finish and just lost the tooth marks but not made new tears. Then I turn it over and plane the inside using the tooth blade and the straight blade alternately, until I have got to the right thickness. Alternating the toothed and the straight blades goes quicker than just using the toothed blade. You can see the different shavings in the picture that the toothed blade and the straight blade make.
The ribs are clamped onto three thick pieces of wood on my table so that I don't have to bend over so much when I'm planing.
When the ribs are to thickness they are bent in shape with heat from a bending iron, so that they fit around the mould. I'm going to use six ribs to go round the entire circumference in this case. In this picture three have been glued on and three are left to do.
In the next picture I've moved on to the back and front. I've taken the outline from the ribs to the front and back plates and cut out the shape with a fretsaw, and then shaped the arching with gouges. Then I put in the purfling.
Now I'm ready to finalise the arching. The pencil lines are where I think more needs to come off. You can still see the facets from my gouge cuts in the arching if you look closely.
Now I'm ready to finalise the arching. The pencil lines are where I think more needs to come off. You can still see the facets from my gouge cuts in the arching if you look closely.
