Following on from earlier experimental fiddles I’ve been thinking of making a violin with very thin areas or cells in the upper and lower bouts. This has led to the idea of a violin with many drum like panels.
Violin Making
The Redwood Violin
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...
Violin plate locating pins – An attractive anachronism
A nice feature of classic period Cremonese instruments are the locating pins found on or near the center line of the back close to the purfling. The top also had locating pins but these have often been obliterated when fitting a modern neck and saddle. The pins are...
Lego Mini Bench
This little bench-raiser is great for your back - and good for your eyes! I recently heard from my Colleague Noémie Viaud about an adjustable height bench that she loves. I wanted one but before going to the expense and trouble of ordering one (her's a...
Turtle Fiddle
This is a follow up to the Dimpled Viola project and develops some of the ideas sparked by that project. With the viola I made an instrument that made a feature of the gouge work that appears in early stages of carving an instrument but that normally gets completely...
Dimpled Viola, an Etude. Part 2, Finishing
In the first part of this study I constructed a viola emphasizing a part of the construction process, the carving, which is visually very interesting but that most players never get to see. In this second part, I consider the surface finish and explore the decorative...
The Dimpled Viola, an Etude. Part 1 – Form
A study of violin aesthetics This is another project that approaches violin making from a slightly different angle in hope of gaining a deeper understanding of the craft. This study is concerned with the visual rather than the functional side of violinmaking, though...
My father’s wood carving
My father was a sculptor who worked in everything from marble and bronze to sintered sand and telegraph poles. in some of his wood carving he used similar techniques to some that I've ended up using in violin making. Whereas I would be obliged to lose all traces of...
Gilding the Lilly
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...
Occam’s Jig, Take Two
Incredibly Occam's scroll holding jig just got simpler, now it's no more than a bench hook with a hole in it! The new version is an astonishing 85% smaller and requires only one clamp to operate. The cello jig is made of 12mm ply, use 5mm ply for the violin version....