Monday, April 12, 2010

2 Steps and 1 Week Later

After the main body was glued together, I went away for the weekend and let it set thoroughly(the glue only needs 24 hours to properly set). Once I got home, I removed all of the clamps and it was definitely solid.

Since then I've done more to the violin but forgot to take photos of the progress. Last Monday I cut out a few small blocks to add to the main body for aesthetics and some level of functionality. They were glued into position and left alone for a day. Following that I cut out a larger portion of the neck using the jigsaw. Between the hardness of the wood and the irregularities of my previous cuts the difficulty of using the jigsaw has made me give up on it.

The most recent thing I've done has been to rasp down the curves of the body. The curves are nowhere near finished but at least I've shown myself that I can continue refining the violin's shape without power tools. After I spend a little more time on the curves I'm going to see how the planer handles leveling the top and bottom. And may test out how a drill and chisel can help me on the project.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A robot could hold this better

So a few hours pass and TA-DA!


I cut up the third piece and got to work gluing and clamping. With a little forethought it wasn't ridiculously difficult to get this set up. Now it needs to be left alone for 24 hours to properly cure. I may try to add the side pieces to the body tomorrow but we'll see about that later.

Sawdust everywhere

My current workshop is my basement, where I get to duck ever so slightly because of the low ceiling and which I'm nestled between boxes of empty wine bottles and a few bicycles. It works out well because it's below ground. Working down there shouldn't be too noisy and I don't have to worry about any mess I make.

Speaking of which, red sawdust everywhere. I didn't think to take the picture until I had already swept up most of it. But I collected about a cup and a half into a jar for whatever reason I could possibly use for bloodwood sawdust(maybe filling in cracks with mixed epoxy?)


And all that sawdust has to come from somewhere. I've now cut out two and a half of the profile pieces. They're looking pretty rough but that's what they're meant to be. I left around half a centimeter of wood around the outline because I wasn't sure of how straight my cuts would be or if the blade was properly set to perpendicular. I didn't get a chance to finish cutting the last piece because I started after dinner and I figured 9 o'clock was a good time to turn off power tools.


This afternoon's work will include finishing the last rough cut and gluing/clamping the whole thing together. As well as cutting down a few small pieces to glue on the next day for shaping the upper and lower body.