MIMF

I always have people begin with Henry Strobel's book "Violin Making, Step-By-Step". It is pretty straight-forward, does not take you into any bad practices, and you can produce a nice classical violin on your first try, if you can really follow directions. The next step up is the Johnson-C...

Well...now I can see the cat-- I couldn't have figured out what it was. Pretty fancy, though.

Your wife will love it.

WOW!! What gorgeous work! I don't think I could manage that sort of perfection. Is the scroll (and back) design copied from some earlier work? That's another fault of mine-- I have no idea how to generate that sort of decorative designs. If I don't have something to look at (over and over, continua...

Well...yeah, her husband needed dental work, and the roof needed repair. Pretty high priority stuff.

Thanks, Darrel.

Final update: The lady will bring the fiddle back today...she likes it, but has more pressing financial obligations. She will keep my contact information and maybe in the future....

Nice exchange...pleasant person. I hope she and her husband get back to me someday.

Thanks, Charlie.

It is sounding better, day by day, too...it was kinda hard to set it down and leave for work this morning.
There are some varnish issues I will have to correct, but overall, I am pleased with it.

Chet

The show went well, though the attendance was quite low...Good time in general. I may have a sale-- a lady took a violin home for a week, on approval...we'll see. Several very good players showed up, including Adam LaMotte (violinist/violist) and Jerry Bobbe (cellist), among others. There was a good...

Here is my latest viola; Sitka top and blocks, Red Maple back and scroll, Big-leaf Maple ribs, and willow linings. If any of you are in the Portland area, there is a small makers' show at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Hotel December 1st (Yes, tomorrow--sorry for the short notice) from 1 PM to 7 PM....

Do NOT use epoxy. What you have there is an easy repair, the way it is: Epoxy will make the instrument unrepairable, permanently. Use warm water and a brush to clean all the old glue out of the seams, and reglue the seams first, so that the corpus is solid. Then do the same thing to the neck joint. ...

I was taught from the beginning to make ribs 1mm thick, so yours sound fine to me; unless you still have to smooth them a lot, in which case they will be thin by the time you have them ready to use.

Craig Tucker wrote:Mario,

I do believe, given a pair of sharp sissors, I'd be willing to try just about anything...

Listen man, all you gotta do is show up and stand still for a second.

Cool?

How could he say no? All his questions could be answered in one grand hurrah!

Thanks, Craig.
I have never liked the "snarling" heads (dragons, gargoyles, lions, whatever) I wanted peaceful dignity. I'm glad you could see that...makes me feel good.

Thanks again,

Chet

Thanks, Jim.

We'll see how it turns out.

Chet

I decided to attempt a lion-head viola. Because I wan't sure I could do it, I chose to carve the head of very hard, plain maple, and then graft the head onto a normal, figured neck, and proceed as with a regular neck/scroll. Here is the head, as it stands so far-- I will do the graft next, so that I...

This place doesn't engage in quite as many vitriol-throwing attacks. Ten years ago, the other place didn't either. Some of us are unwilling to continually endure the noise while searching for the signal.

Well, Craig, you probably already knew I was here (I'm everywhere, like a bad weed) but I am glad to see you here. You tend to keep things moving better than I do. Working on a "Plowden" Guarneri del Gesu attempt. Lots of stuff to do before winter, so it is moving kinda slow--like me. This...

Good to see you here, Craig, my friend!

Is it supposed to be a surprise? If not, why not discuss it with him, and colaborate on the "personalization. If it is made to his specific taste, that may be personalization enough. I have known fiddlers who had their initials carved into the headstock somewhere, in bas-relief, and others with...

Ah. Well, if it is fine guitars you like, you'd have to talk to my son...he also lives in Forest Grove, and has followed that persuasion. He's also starting to build ukuleles, and mandolins, I think...fretted instruments, in short. He has an archtop that gets accolades wherever it goes. I'll have to...

Thanks, Jason;

I wish you had stopped by, too...but you live less than an hour away from me-- why not drop by and play it? (I don't really play, so I would welcome a "test-driver".)

Chet