In part 1 of this post I discussed the ideas behind the hybrid "Tabolin". The instrument is part violin, part tabla drum and will feature tunable, resonant panels of velum in the body. I hope that the fiddle will have will have playing qualities similar to a Viola...
On January 1st this year I effectively quit my violinmaking day job and devoted myself fulltime to the Redwood Violin Project. The idea was to make a violin, from scratch, using only materials from within 25 miles of my house. I asked for help with making the violin...
The young Stradivari made several richly decorated fiddles. As his taste matured he set aside childish things, presumably the subtle variations between violins being fascinating and fulfilling enough to hold his attention, as it does ours. Yet he did still allow...
I wanted to add some local spice to the viola that I made in Tepotzlan, Mexico. Ernesto, my host, gave me some of the traditional Amate paper that he uses for his own labels. Amate is made from the bark of a spectacular Ficus tree. I saw this one in the...
This was a quick test to look at the effectiveness of silk as a rib reinforcement rather than a more commonly used wood cleat.
While driving up to Seattle I remembered that I had once ordered wood from an Austrian organ builder living in the area.
These Brazilian guys drive the country selling Brazilian made bows and violin wood from Europe. For violin makers like me, far from any European wood mill or US wood wholesaler, this allows me to pick through the wood before buying it, an invaluable service.
Updated 8.23.2012 - see below I came across this at Robertsons and Sons Violins where they have not used any other animal glue for many years. It is a good quality animal glue, liquid at room temperature and consequently has a long working time of several minutes...