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.

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.

Yea, yea, yea, but what about Phase 2?

Well, Phase 3 is profit. And Phase 1 was collect all the parts(read: underpants).

So far Phase 2 includes:

-Use an old jigsaw to cut out a test piece. And after less than an inch of cutting, understand that the old jigsaw just isn't going to cut it(pun intended)

-Borrow a relatively new jigsaw from work.

-Use the new jigsaw to cut out a test piece. (More or less accomplished)

-Get the bloodwood and cut it up into 4 separate pieces. (Totally accomplished)

And that's it so far. The next immediate step is to cut the pieces down to a rough cut level. Three of the four pieces you can see above have the profile view penciled onto them. I'll probably cut them to within a few millimeters of the penciled lines. At that point I think it will be time for gluing and clamping. After that point it's a mystery, but hopefully I will soon decide.

Hope to do the rough cuts tomorrow or the next day.

4/4 Violin Project Begun

The 4/4 refers to a full size violin. Violins are made in multiple sizes for children as their arms get longer. 3/4 is the next size down, then 1/2 and 1/4. I think I heard the sizes go as far as 1/16 or 1/32 but a 1/32 is not actually one-thirty-second the size it's just smaller.

So I've finally gathered up all of the important parts and pieces and tools that I should need to make my violin. (Except wood glue and strings but those aren't important yet) And here they are:

Top Left- The fitted bridge
Top Right- Tail piece and connector
Left- Chin rest
Bottom- Ebony fingerboard


These are the open gear tuners.


Here's a close up of the gorgeous bloodwood I'll be making this out of. (It's ridiculously heavy for a single piece of wood) Also this 7-foot-long, 4-inch-wide piece cost $27.38 and was only 2.115 boardfeet. I never want to make a table out of exotic hardwood, it'd cost a fortune.


And last are the rough sketches I made of the side view and top down view. I'll be making another set of these that are "finalized" to trace onto the bloodwood for the first roughcut.


I'm planning on cutting three pieces of the Side view and then laminating(wood glueing) them together. Then measuring things out and making the rough cut for the top down view. After that point it should all be planing, filing, drilling and sanding. Let's see how this goes.

Violin Project 3/4 Begun

Earlier this week the guitar tuners came in the mail. It's a set of six open tuners with 3 for each side of the headstock. The "open" refers to the fact that you can see the peg screw and the gear that it turns. Since violins only have 4 strings, I'll end up with 2 spares.

Now that all of the hardware I ordered has been delivered, I started sketching out the blueprints to get an understanding of dimensions. I made both a side view and top-down view. They're mostly finished except I haven't decided on what angle the headstock should be. The neck of the violin is 3degrees lower than the body; this sets the strings and fretboard in line with one another. Yet the angle of the headstock does not effect the functionality of playing so the angle can vary. Seemingly different manufacturers claim it effects the tone of the instrument and as a result the manufacturer selects an angle and makes it their standard. I might just decide to make it 5 degrees, very scientific.

While mentioning the headstock and drawings, companies patent the design of the instruments' headstocks. Though the shape of the headstock doesn't change the sound much at all, companies usually put their brand name on it and try to make a recognizable shape to associate to their brand. So I went ahead and sketched tons of different shapes to try to find my design but in the end simply rounded the top to make the woodworking as simple as possible.

Also since the dimensions have been drawn out, I can make an educated guess as to the amount of wood I need. And if it stays dry enough, I'll stop by the lumber yard after work today to pick some up. Another thing after work today is going out to dinner with Oz's parents which means I get a random assortment of tools!

Violin Project 1/2 Begun

So with the piezo pickup working out just fine, the electrical department is all taken care of. Also tonight Oz and I are getting dinner with her family for her dad's birthday but I'm the one getting presents in the form of hand-me-down tools. I'm hoping then that I'll have the majority of tools I need to get started. With everything lining up, I went ahead and purchased the parts and pieces I expect to need to make the electric violin:

1 Ebony Fingerboard - $10 For another 10 cents I got the 'Better Grade' AND interesting fact, ebony is poisonous.
1 Hardwood, Black Dyed, Violin Chinrest - $5.75
1 Violin Fitted Bridge 4/4 size - $2.50
1 Ebony Tailpiece 4/4 size - $4.25
1 Tailpiece Adjuster - $2.40
1 6pc. Set of Open Gear Guitar Tuners - $12.53

Total $37.43 +13.95 for shipping

I'll still need to get violin strings but I'll grab some tonight as we pass the music store. I also need the actual wood, which I'll check out the local lumber yard to see what they have and figure out what I'd need.

In other news D&D this past weekend went well. The players checked out 2 more dungeons, and figured out a puzzle through trial and error. Nobody fell into any of the lava traps. And they were ambushed. I may scan in another the dungeon map with the lava traps marked out. Oz is on a mission to make more gridded, laminated paper so I can have more space to work with. The dungeons have so far been very small, more like intricate chambers rather than sprawling dungeons.