I have most of the pedals on your board ceri, but I don't have the socks.

Frankly, I can live without the socks..

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Indeed! I am waiting to see that thread sometime.

I was smart enough just to buy one, a violin (a Strunal 3/4 student model for my daughter to start on, but of course I can try sawing on it a bit), a couple months ago.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Ceri has in the HANDS of him Jimi's Woodstock STRAT! and Ceri invented LSD

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Squier is the BEST part of Fender. Don't Kill it off!
Fender. WE love Squier guitars now they have got much better

I LOVE MY AFFINITY STRAT!

There once was a lad named Ceri,
At the bar he bumped into Prince Hari,
And Hari said, "you’re so cool,
That I’d be a damned fool,
Not to chuck it all and become you."

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

Phew, yes: I'd much rather talk about that, thank you. Nothing legendary, but plenty of fun.

I only got so far with it, so a thread will have to wait till I have a finished instrument (or two or three) to show. But we can have a sneak preview of the job so far if you'd like?

Back-story: there are several famous centres of traditional violin making, including Cremona in Italy, Newark in England and Mittenwald in Germany. In the 1950s Englishwoman Juliet Barker took herself off to Mittenwald for a few years to learn their approach to historic luthiery, transmitted directly down the generations from the opening decades of violin making in the 18th century. She then came back here and set up the Cambridge Violin Workshop to pass on that strict tradition of hand building. The Workshop runs year round but a couple of times a year they do residential courses where you can go and learn the craft, and people come from all over the world to do just that. Which is what I did this summer.

Here is Juliet today, still teaching in the Workshop:



She wrote the book - literally:



First thing I was asked when I arrived was did I want to make a Stradivarius or a Guarnerius? Cripes! I decided to make a 1716 Strad. I mean, why not, huh?

Violins are built on wooden "moulds", which are removed before the front is put on. Here's my Strad spec mould. We have to carve the spruce corner and end blocks to exactly follow the line of the inside of the instrument - and I do mean exactly:





We prepare the "ribs" (sides) of the instrument by planing them to 1.1 mm thickness all over. That has to be very precise: if they are even slightly thicker or thinner anywhere they won't bend evenly. It is done with a block plane running lengthwise but held at 45 degrees, so the blade doesn't catch on the irregular grain of the flamed maple:





Here we are heat-bending the ribs to shape on a scalding hot bending iron. Just when you think this is going swimmingly a rib can break with an agonising loud SNAP which can be heard all over the workshop:



We gradually form them to follow the curves of the mould and then glue and cramp them to the corner and end blocks (not to the mould itself, which is removed later):



Meanwhile, we can book-match and glue up some flamey maple for the violin back:



What we're learning here is the historic Mittenwald method of building, which is strict hand building only - no machine tools. So one face of that "plate" has to be smoothed to glass flatness by hand planing. Here is a nice trick for helping with that. This piece of perfectly flat slate is covered in powdered graphite. We rub the plate around on it a bit...:



...which leaves graphite on the uneven parts, telling us where to plane some more:



The whole job is done with a number 7 jointer plane:



I've always flattened wood by machine before. I had no idea I'd be able to do a wide piece like that by hand, so that is a nice new skill aquired. What do you think of this chunk of flamed timber? Just a beginner's piece, remember. Eat your heart out, Gibson Les Paul!



And the same process for the Alpine spruce soundboard:



Neck carving. A neat little principle I learned is that if there is a weak spot on a violin neck where the wood might split it is around the top-most peghole (the A peg). So to help guard against that we try to find a spot on the neck billet where the grain angles in the same direction as the peghead and position the neck accordingly. We all know that if a guitar neck is going to break it is at the point where the fingerboard turns into the headstock, so from now on you will see me selecting my guitar neck blanks on this same principle - a handy little transferable skill (so happens this week I've been fixing someone's broken Gibson headstock, so...):



Every single step of the work has to be made symmetrical and perfect so that cumulative inaccuracies don't appear. That means constant checking:



This tiny hairline of light coming between the wood and the metal square near the top means the back of the scroll isn't quite true yet. More work to do:



Carving the scroll and pegbox proceeds by a logical sequence, with slight variations depending which "school" we are following:















At the end of the course anyone who'd finished an instrument could offer it to be tested by a professional player visiting the Workshop for the purpose, who played them and gave his verdict on each violin and viola in turn. A couple of these violins are by the Workshop professionals, who happen to be amongst the finest makers in the world. There were beads of sweat on brows: it was extremely vital that their instruments turn out to be better than those of the people they'd been teaching! They were, but the quality of the Workshop is such that nobody completes a violin without it being at least well above average. Those are fine instruments we're looking at:



I shall be back here with my red Cambridge apron next Easter to pick up where I left off. To be continued...



No legend - but very sharp chisels.

Cheers - C

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that looks really fun!!! nice work there

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Ceri that looks...

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Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr

I'm now partially satisfied! Looking forward to the rest of the story. Thank you sir Ceri !!

You never cease to amaze. You are... the most interesting man in the world!

Twenty-six--yes, count 'em, twenty-six pictures relating to all the reasons this thread was started...all jokes aside, you're one of the best documenters of the long, arduous journeys of instrument building and repair.

You make it interesting and entertaining all at the same time!

Thanks again, Ceri...can't wait to see the rest of the journey.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Hi Ceri!
Thanks for taking the time to post about your violin build. Really exciting stuff!
All the best man! Mike.

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FIGHT!

HA! I love that! That may be one of my favorite posts ever on the Forum. I would like to have a T-shirt that says:

I AM NOW PARTIALLY SATISFIED. LOOKING FORWARD TO THE REST OF THE STORY.

Or a sign for my desk, or something. What a fabulous, positive philosophy for life!

My respect to you, Hop; and to all fellow Forum users.

Cheers - Mr Average

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Woah...I gotta get my friend, Sugarbeet to see this!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Ceri has the hands or both SRV and Hendrix combined

_________________
Squier is the BEST part of Fender. Don't Kill it off!
Fender. WE love Squier guitars now they have got much better

I LOVE MY AFFINITY STRAT!