Gluing ribs on C-part

Well, since the preparation of ribs finished, now it's a time to glue them on corner blocks!
At first we soak ribs into water a few minutes, and we bend them by heated iron.
I'm using heated iron which I bought from Stewart Mcdonard USA. They are really quick suppliers, and really convinient for me. Actuary most of tools which I use are from them. Iron is heated well now. OK, let's start bending ribs!

For bending ribs, this kind of thin alminum plate is pretty convinient. For the first time when I mad bending strap by myself, I made it from alminum drink cans.
Alminum cans are easy to get and easy to cut. But the thing is, it's little bit too thick for using. (And some pats are scrachy, I hurt my finger because of this.^^;)
So I re-made bending strap from thin alminum film, thickness 0.2mm. And I put on small wood pieces on each side of end.


Bending by heatness seems simple but, we have to do it pretty cautiously. Because the shape of corner of Strad model is pretty tight. If we try to bend rib wood strongly to match the shape of corner from the beginning, we always break it unexpectedly. So we have to bend ribs slowly, cafully, and gently. (I made many mistakes in the past at this process, so now I know how easy it breaks.)

And sometimes this kind of wood block is also pretty convinient. This is made from the excess wood which was from making of (1st violin's)Neck. At the neck making process, we always get much excess wood pieces. They are quite useful, and I always don't throw them away. ^^
The mean thickness of left and right side ribs on Strad model is pretty different! This time treble side is about 1.2mm, and bass side is 1.0mm. So the thicker rib was kind of tough to bend.(but it also depends on the character of rib materials. This time rib material was little bit harder than usual.)


Let's glue ribs which are bent! And it's time for small gluing pads which I made previously~
...
...
Ooops, they don't match the shape of corners...why!? Yesterday they completly matched to the corner BLOCK shape though!
...
That's because I forgot to calculate thickness of ribs. Even though pads match to block shapes, after adding ribs the shapes change. Auurlala... what should I do...what should I do?? Even while thinking like this, glue gets colder, I had to hurry! And at first I thought that this time I was going to try traditional way of clamping such as Stradivarius did in 300 years ago. It is not clamping by F-clamps but by strings. I tried to tie the gluing pad to wood stick which was sticked on mold. But,,,this idea was completely crap! String was not enough strong to tie such pads and ribs. Trying and failing made me frustlated. Glue is really getting colder...


After all I gave up using traditional method and using pads. I used many many small clamps(they are pretty strong pinches), and finally managed to glue them. Fiouuuus! I don't know how long I was trying this. Maybe 3-4 hours? It doesn't look smart at all ^^;)
Every time I feel this process is the first process which looks like making violin, but this is one of the most difficult process of making violin. I want to modify this process's method so much. Some luthiers in Cremona are using thin mold and clamp ribs and corner blocks by spoul clamps (is it correct spelling?)which are usually used for gluing table and back plates.

This time's point is
* Forgeting calculation of thickness of ribs when I made gluing pads
* Trying to clamp by strings like traditional method(which doesn't provide enaough power for clamping)
* I got modifying idea for next time!

Maybe next time this process would be easier and smarter ^^)

Violin making (4th) Preparing Ribs

Even though I'm making my 4th violin now, I haven't updated this blog for a while... Sorry about that (^^;
Last time, I showed until I finished the shaping of 4 corner blocks and upper and lower blocks. This time I'm going to prepare the Ribs and start to glue on C-part.
At first, I have to prepare the ribs. This time I got 4ribs(Length:400mm, Width:45mm Thicknbess:2.5mm). These rib materials are too thick and too wide. So I have to reduce the width to 35mm, and thickness to about 1.0~1.2mm.

(In this photo,I'm using a plane to shave width of 4 ribs at the same time)

Since this time I'm going to make the copy of Stradivarius, thickness of rib is pretty thinner than Guarneri del jesu which I made last time(It was about 1.2~1.5mm). Yeah, it's way thinner, so I have to be careful. I have to adjust my sense (mind) onto Stradivarius type.



This time I also prepared the special tool for gluing C-part ribs. (small parts which we can see on my mold) I have already many small gluing pad like these, I already made them for Guarneri copy and my 2nd violin. Since every violin has different shape of corners and C-part, I think it's better to make these pads for each of violins.
But then, small trouble was found! I found that there are not enough holes on mold to glue ribs. Gluing on upper and lower blocks, I usually use F-type-clamp. But this time I made just one hole each side of upper and lower. I need at least two more holes on each sides.
So, no choise. I had to make additional space on mold for F-clamp. It looks little bit ugly, but it's OK! It's just a mold which will be unnecessary later(^^;

Well then, next step is gluing C-part Ribs!! Yahhoooooy!Actuary, I don't like next step so much though...we'll see!

Violin making(4th) the Kruse

In spite of this blog is violin making diary, for the moment there's no article about making violin. Somebody might say this kind of thing, today I'm going to write about present violin making. ^^)
This time is my 4th time of violin making. This time I'm going to make a copy of Stradivarius 1721 "Kruse"'s violin.
I don't make usual way of violin making like completely symmetrical type. Usually, especially modern violin makers like to make completely symmetrical in right and left side. But even the Stradivarius's violin is not complete symmetrical. The shape of right side and left side is little bit different. I think This is also important factor of making nice sound.

So, this time I made a mold from the table side of Stradivari 1721. And I glued 4corner blocks and upper and lower blocks.



















And make flat surfaces of each blocks, because at first each blocks don't have correct hight. I used small planes (I use both Japanese type and western type. ), make their hight 30mm to 31mm.



















And shave corner blocks. But this time I curved only inside of C-part. Because I have an idea not to distort the shape of corner blocks by curving each side of C-part and others.
It's little bit difficult to explain in words, but anyway usually people complete the shape of corner blocks at this process.

Next step is preparing the Ribs. Nest part is pretty tough and I don't like it, but no other choice. I just do my best. Hehehe!

Accident

After meeting the 1st violin, I was really crazy about this violin. Even though the sound was solid and immatured. One day, when I was practicing the violin.
I was practicing pretty long hours, so I wanted  to take a break. I put the violin in the violin case. And then suddenly I felt like to change the dispositions of TV and music player. I started to move the TV, and pushed the CD player little bit. Then the one of speakers fell on the floor where I put the violin case! Shit!!
The cover of the case was... unfortunately open. And speaker crushed on the violin's tail piece! No!! Unbelievable!
(It was me who was unbelievable, hehehe)

Usually, because of this kind of accident, violin would break down into millions of pieces... But, it was lucky. It didn't get broken. It got just E string adjuster's scratch. But anyway, I was pretty careless ^^;
Let's not put our precious violins in front of BIG SPEAKER, and let's close the cover of violin case often!(Maybe it's just me who does such a stupid thing??)

Taking the lesson

March and April 2005
It has past 2or 3 months after I got the first violin.When I joined a party, I was often asked to play a violin by my friends.

"Hey, show us your violin, and play something!"
"Hehehe, OK, don't regret."
...
...
"Ooouf, pretty bad."
"I told you!!"

I knew my playing was still not good at all.I was having fun just playing what I want to play, not practice so much.But I started to feel maybe I should take proper lesson.
Otherwise my skill will not advance so much...Because you know, practicing something just by ourselves is pretty boring and we get lazy little by little. And we can't brush up techniques so much.But taking lesson means we have to show our playing to a teacher and we should show some progress after every lesson, right?

I decided to take a lesson, but as I mentioned few times, my place sucked. Of course there's nobody playing violin around me, and of course there's no teacher for violin!!
So I looked for an information of somebody teaches violin. And I found just 1 possibility. It was a private school managed by "Kawai Music". Kawai Music is famous as a maker of piano and violin. And it had a campaign which offers a violin course for adults! Yes! This is perfect!

But the thing is this lesson was taken place in capital city of prefecture where was muuuuuch away from my town. It was 120km(75miles) away, it takes about 2 hours by car. Going and coming back take more than 4 hours!

But I had no choice. That was an only one possibility. Why not?! I applied to join that school right away. As a lucky thing, I used to go to that city pretty often by business. So I decided "From now on, every Monday is a business trip day to the capital city!" Hehehe^^;)
Since the company was pretty small and I could decide all my schedule by myself. That was lucky for me.

After receiving the 1st violin

After receiving the 1st violin, I started to buy a few stuffs which were necessary for playing violin.
Because... the first shoulder rest was made of plastic! (It got broken after few days I started playing)
The tuner was plastic whistle type! (It's impossible to tune by using such a cheap whistle for a beginner)
The bow which came with the electric violin set was also plastic!(just...unbelievable)
The rosin which came with the electric violin was reeaally cheap like 1$ stuff.

So, because of those unbelievable cheap stuff , I had to buy new stuffs.


I bought "viva la musica " made in Slovenia as a new shoulder rest. This shoulder rest was pretty good looking, classy, and it fit to my shoulder pretty well.



I also bought "Mach one"

This shoulder rest, many people was telling it's really great,but for me unfortunately it didn't match to my shoulder at all. It was always slippy on my shoulder.




I bought a new bow, on the inter net auction. It was made in China, but it was pretty cheap, 100$. It was just usable though ^^;
I don't use shoulder rest anymore now, but I just introduced them as a information. My present teacher recommended me to play without shoulder rest, so I'm not using them for more than 2years.

Receiving 1st Violin

Febrary2005
I got the first violin which is made of wood. My first impressin was
"Waaa, this is really beautiful. This tiger flame, this varnish, it's really great."
As a first violin, actuary it was beautiful.

But at that time I had no knowledge about violin. So I knew that violin was made in USA 2004. Its label said
"Saphire violin Import model Domini anno 2004 California...(phone number)"
My impression was,
"Hmmm, California... I've never heard that there's violin maker there. How about the feed-back of this kind of american maker?
Is it great? I have no idea, but I don't mind."
Of course I didn't mind. Because I had no idea! ^^;)

Anyway I tried to play the violin.
"Oh, the volume of sound is pretty big! It might piss off that crasy middle age woman."
So I decided not play after 10 o'clock, and putting a mute on it as much as possible. It worked, I had never been complained by that woman again. ^^)

Since this violin was made less than 1 year ago, the sound was still not matured(of course), young and peaky. (Especially it had steel strings, not nilon nor gut.) But I was so happy having this violin, and I didn't recognise its sound is that solid and peaky.

So, I was getting desire to have new text book. I wanted to learn more things not only using A and E strings. So I looked for proper book which teaches basic good method of playing. And I found this book on Amazon jp. This book was written by Brugarian author Geanne Marinow(I'm not sure the name though) And it was translated into Japanese. It was recommended with 5 stars. So, why not?

I bought it.
And it included lots of basic things which is important to start violin. With many drawings, it was easy to understand. Maybe you can also find this book in your country.

This book's good point is also it has lots of daily practice(really basic). Sometimes we get bored of playing same basic scores.
But I didn't get so bored, thanks to this book.