Playing on Masakichi Suzuki No.6

I received Masakichi No.6 a couple of days later. This violin seemed really well made compared to other 2 Masakichis.
The back was really highly flamed, neck, ribs too.
Top was really nice spruce, (but it’s probably Japanese wood. Since at the beginning of Suzuki violin, they used Japanese materials for almost all of their products. Unfortunately, Japanese materials are not so high quality compared to European materials, from the point of sound.) .
Comparing F-holes to other violins, this one has really nice shape and well finished.

And neck scroll. It’s really well balanced, and perfect shape.
Considering these points, I thought this was handmade by a well-experienced craftsman.

（figure 1: try to put new strings on it ）

（F-hose is also well finished, right?）

How was the sound? Yes, it was preeeety good.
I’d never had such nice sound before. Treble sound was easy to play and beautiful, lower sound was like a human bass voice.
I don’t know how to tell, it’s difficult to describe sound by words.^^;) especially in English.
Anyway, it was the best sound for me at that time, I was crazy about that violin. I played all the time. I was practicing Concerto No.3 of F.Seitz at that time, I felt "Waaah, I became so good at playing this tune!" Hehehe, of course it was a kind of silly confidence.
But few weeks later, I noticed something. It makes a weird noise sometimes.
Like a metallic sound, like electric guitar sound. Why???
Even though I play classical violin, why it makes sound of hard rock? ^^;)
I noticed it’s when I play double string sound. (I don’t know how to say that, is it correct? )
When I play 2 strings at the same time, the vibration of violin is huge.
So it might have been some cracks at somewhere. But I couldn’t find at all.
It was a mystery…

The third Masakichi Suzuki

April 2006
At that time, I had already 2 Masakichi Suzuki violins.
It was supposed to be enough for one player, but one day I found a great look Masakichi violin on the net-auction again!
It was obviously Masakichi suzuki’s label, but seller seemed she hadn’t noticed it.
And other bidders either. And label was showing its No. 6 looked like handwriting.

(but we can't see the number in this picture, ^^;) sorry)

About Masakichi Suzuki violin, handwritten number is really rare, and it was supposed to be especially high-grade model.
But I don’t know this violin is really equivalent to the special grade yet.
I’m not a specialist of this kind of violin. I know few maniac people in Japan though ^^;)
They seem they know everything about Masakichi violin.
It seemed more valuable than the price for me. It was 300$ at that moment.
“No one seemed not noticing this great violin, it should come to my place!”

So, I bought it. Hehehe, I know, it’s pretty useless to buy so many violins.
Especially, player is just one person, me. Of course I can’t play so many violins.
But just by curios, how many violins I had at that time? Let’s see.

1. The first violin, which is made in California
2. Masakichi Suzuki No.A
3. M.Suzuki No.3010
4. my handmade 1st violin(which was under building)
5. and, this M.Suzuki violin No.6

Alalala… I had so many violins already. It is obviously too much for one beginner^^;)

Notification

Recently, I wrote about my painting, pet, etc.
Since I wrote many kinds of things, the main theme of this blog is little bit less clear.
So I started other web cite which is about mostly watercolor painting.
If you’re interested in my paintings, pls visit this web cite.
www.atelier-fujino.com

For the moment there’s just Japanese version for this cite, but I’m building English version too.
So pls wait for that.(Of course you can visit even now, we actually don’t need a word for watching pictures)

From now on I’m going to put topics only about violins, music stuffs on
this blog. (^^)

curving inside of back

I'm curving inside of the back since last week. (^^)

Little by little, I'm curving. It's becoming like a violin, right?

I’m curving inside for 2 weeks, but it’s still 50% done, maybe. It weighs 169g now.

I hope it will lose 50g more! Fooooouuu(sigh), it’s tiring. ^^;)

But it’s also interesting part, it feels this is the most popular violin making scene.
Recently my making violin is proceeding slowly though, please keep checking.(^^)

After arching

I haven’t updated this blog for a while, sorry about it ^^;)
Recently I was really busy with my work. Today, I’m gonna show you my recent work of making violin(my 4th violin).
How is making the violin’s back now? After I started making the arch of back, it took much time. Since I wanted to make precisely same arch than Stradivari’s violin, I took much time. But in some parts, arching guide didn’t match to my back. I wonder how much can we trust the arch from the poster(the Strad)?
(Because this time, I noticed few of arches’ lines were partly omitted in the poster.) So sometime I had to guess the lines from that poster. ~~;) Hmmm.
It’s kind of dangerous to follow 100% to the poster, isn’t it?

Anyway, finally finished the arching!! Fiouuu! It was already tiring though! For the moment, this back weighs 299g. It
’s little bit heavier than usual material. Since my 3rd violin guarneri model had 270g at this point. I wish I can make it lighter. Hopefully, final weight should be less than 120g. Even pretty thick guarneri model was 119g, so I want to make it less than 115g! (Am I hoping too much? ^^;) But violin should be lighter, heavy instrument makes us really tired easily.


Before curving inside, I've made many holes to guide curving. This is Henry Strobel method.(^^)
I started to curve inside of back, finally! ^^)

(I feel this time, it’s really taking much time. But it’s ok, it’s just for me, I don’t have to hurry.)

Curving inside with chisel, curving knife…mostly curving knife.　And even inside, it’s still tough to curve. Maple is really hard! My hands hurt, and even my back has muscle ache! Hehehe!

The main roll

You probably know we have a bulldog since 2month ago. He is a mixture of French and English bulldog. This kind of mix is pretty rare, here in Japan. His name is Loppete(means woes in French )
Yesterday I got a phone call from a dog-trainer who taught us a month ago how to educate puppy. She said,
“Don’t you want to let Lopette play in a movie?”
Wao, this is really sudden opportunity. Wahat happened? She said,
“The film making company is looking for a French bulldog which has exactly same black and white part on a face like Lopette.”
But our dog is a half French bulldog. According to her, it’s still rare to find this kind of face, so there’s much chance. OK, it looks funny, why not? Let’s try this. She said,
“This film is based on a Manga which is about French bulldog and a girl. The schedule of this film making is pretty tight. They are going to have an audition from tomorrow, and they’ll start to film from 30th June. So could you go to show your dog to them tomorrow or Saturday?”
OK, I decided to go to there on Saturday.

（He has Japanese festival Kimono.）

Today’s afternoon. She called me again.
“I’m so sorry. They decided to film with other company’s dog. Which has exactly same color as a character in the Manga. Sorry, even though you decided to go to the audition…”
Hehehe… it’s too bad Lopette. You didn’t have even a chance to attend the audition. Poor Lopette. He might have had a chance to become a movie star though! ^^;)
Even though he lost his chance, he is still our own movie star!!

Vannes

The city Vannes is located near the central city (Rennes) of Bretagne in France. This city is about 1 hour by car from Rennes.
I went to there in summer of 2005 and 2006. There are always many tourists from all over the world to this city.
The city was surrounded by old old walls that were defending this town from enemies in Mid-century, probably.
The animated area of this town is still inside of the walls, so we have to pass the gate to enter the center of the town. This is pretty interesting for me, because there's no city in my country which is surrounded by walls like this.
In Japan, in Mid-century, castles were surrounded by huge walls and towns were also surrounding the castles. So, government was always protected by walls and town.
But in Europe, usually town is also surrounded by walls like this town. The center is always a church.

watercolor, F4

In this town, many houses have colorful columns in outside of walls. This is pretty.
And many houses are really crooked, it looked like they are almost turning down. But even though they are crooked, people are living as if it’s quite normal. This is really unbelievable thing in my country, but it’s interesting.

I found two crooked old houses, in the edge of animated area. They didn’t have colorful columns, they had really old natural wood columns that looked great for me. They looked like they are managing little private hotels. I liked the colors of these houses. And the small narrow road was also crooked and filled with pebbles. I tried to make a nostalgic atmosphere on my picture by using just few colors…

(Vannes is here.)

Just a little bit of difference...

Causes huge difference of sound of violin.
Recently, I was feeling that my 3rd violin Guarneri del gesu copy has little bit less volume of sound. Compared to my lttle bit old violin Marengo Romanus Rinaldi(1895), I feel like my 3rd one has smaller sound...

In the past I tried to get bigger sound, I tried few things.
At first, I got an information that how to twist strings on pegs. Usually, when we equip strings, we twist strings on peg from inside to outside of pegbox. Inside of pegbox, strings look like it goes slightly outside of pegbox. This is to prevent peg’s turning back and loosing string’s tension. But according to the information which I read, when strings are twisted on pegs slightly inside of peg box, strings’ vibrations are not disturbed by anything. And they say in this way violin sounds really better. Shortly, the angle of string is the point.
I tried this. After that, hmm, sound became little bit bigger, I thought. But not enough.
Second, it was how to equip a chin rest. Even by how to put a chin rest changes sound of violin a lot (probably most violinists know it). This is often used in the instrument shops. When lower sound is too small, loosen the tension of left side leg of chin rest, tighten the other leg. When treble sound is small, do the opposite. My case, treble was small, so I did the latter method. Certainly, it was kind of effective. But still not enough.

I was wondering, is this a limit of this violin? Before I felt its sound was much more powerful. I thought there must be something.
I tried to move the position of the bridge, just in case. We cannot move a bridge toward the fingerboard nor tail piece. Because it changes length of string from nut to bridge, and it influences a playing. But anyway I tried to move bridge in these directions. But there was not much change. Suddenly I thought about move it in the direction of treble string side. The sound changed so much!! It changed astonishingly. Probably the foot of bridge was not above bass bar before. Suddenly lower sound started to sound with big vibration.
And thanks to lower sound’s volume up, treble sound became bigger and more beautiful.

There’s not much difference from the original position. Maybe 1 mm? Even with this small difference causes such a huge difference of the sound. I thought I knew this violin pretty well, but there’s still things to learn… I think there’s few things to try before we give up on our own violins ^^) (of course same for other stringed instruments) Now my 3rd violin has really powerful and beautiful sound, and it's fun to play it. The thing is... my playing ability though^^;)

Arching

Recently, my 4th violin making doesn’t look like proceeding. But, little by little, I’m still making it ^^;). For the moment, I’m in the making of back’s arch.
The other day, I made arch guides at first, they‘re copied from the poster of The Strad. I don’t have to make completely same as Stradivarius, but I want to make it close to the actual instrument.^^)

Making the arch is pretty interesting, it determines the outlook of the violin so much.
This time I’m using only small planes to make arch. It’s to make it carefully. It’s slow, but this arching is important factor to determine the outlook and sound. (Stradivari’s violin is well calculated, its volume of sound box is pretty important). But of course it should be beautiful too. To make people enjoy to look it.


But using only small planes is kind of tiring, and it makes water balls on my fingers.
Ouch!! the violinist’ s delicate finger got hurt, shit! ^^;) (I’m kidding, hehehe)

(It’s becoming violin shape. But this is still 50% of this process)

Sometimes,

I draw and paint a picture...

It's not related to making violin though. ^^;)

watercolor、Arche(26cm×36cm)

I drew a picture of "Le Chateau de Josselin" where I visited last winter.
(Chateau de Josselin, Bretagne, France)

There is a small town Josselin near by the central city(Rennes) of Bretagne in France. And there is a nice atmosphere castle in this small town. Did this castle dominant this area in the past? The town has also pretty nice atmosphere which reminds me the movie "Lord of the ring". Many houses have really small entrance, looked like Hobits were living there.

The castle is standing next to the small river, and I looked for a nice point of view. When I went to the upper side of the river, I found the castle's reflection on the surface of river was beautiful. And there was also nice small bridge.
It was Sunday before Christmas, there was really less people, and almost all the shops were closed. But the town had still nice atmosphere. I thought there must be much more tourist in usual weekend... Only the middl age couple was walking along the river towards the castle.

Josselin is here.

Purfling 3

Finally it's time to put purfing inside of trenches which I made the other day. At first I cut purfling material into some pieces, and soak them in water. And bend them by hot iron, like making rib and linings.
Even thouhg books say "You don't have to bend purfling exactly same as outline." I have to bend it precisely. Because this time I'm using maple purfling(the center part purfling is made of maple), this type of purfling is kind of hard to bend without hot iron. Bending by hand without heat ness, it's easily get broken. White fiber type is pretty easier to bend, it's kind of elastic. Why am I using such a troublesome material? Because even though it's tough to use, I thought it's better the quality of material between back and purfling are same. Considering the effect to the sound.

Bending and shaping the corner part of purfling was pretty tough this time. I almost lost my patience, and got frustrated ^^;) So I didn't have enough energy to take a picture.

Sorry there's no photo of putting purfling inside of back this time. This is the photo after putting all the purfling. I could finish making purfling somehow. There's no photo of corner part? Hehehe, sory, for the moment I cannot show it yet. Maybe later!


My parakeet Sue is watching the result. "What do you think about the result, Ms. Sue?"
"Maybe, not bad. Better than last time."
"Merci, Madame."(^^)

Purfling 2

Since I could prepare some flat parts for perfling, now it's time to make a trench for purfling. I know most of violin makers hate this part, because maple is really hard to curve trenches, it takes so much time (just for a decoration), and if they make mistake in this step the result would be pretty poor. I wrote purfling is just a decolation above this line, actually it has also specific purpose to prevent the back's crack and split. But for most of luthiers, it feels like just a decoration during making violin! ^^;)

Making trenches, I use DREMEL as a tool.
Originally, makers use simple cutter and purfling cleaner, but it takes too much time! Hehehe. Even though somebody sais "Ah, this method is not traditional at all!", I don't care. For me, even though there is good convenient tools , cling on the old method, saying "Except for traditional method, it's a fake!" seems really stupid. Why don't they use new tools? Because they are kind of too suborned people, and like to deny new stuffs. I saw this kind of people a lot, especially in Japan. ^^;)
Some Japanese makers who say they are real professional violin maker have pretty old way of thinking. They are afraid of being taken their customers by amateur violin makers, so they are desperate to deny and criticize. From my point of view, they are pathetic though. Sorry about complaining ^^;)

Anyway, my style is accepting new things and apply them to violin making. And for me, DREMEL is really convenient and quick to advance.
Only the corner parts, I cannot use DREMEL. So I have to use "traditional method" for these parts. At first I tried to draw lines for purfling on corner parts, imagining what kind of result I will get.

Even using this kind of power tools, we still have to be careful not to make a mistake. But compared to "traditional way", it's way faster. I could finish making trench just in one day. By old method it takes about 2,3days.

Purfling 1

After cutting out the back, it's time to get ready for purfling. You know purfling?Just in case, I'm going to explain. Purfling is a decoration which you can see on oloin, and viola, violincell, which looks like just a black line along the outline of violin and so on. It looks like just a line but actually it's made of two kinds of wood, black part is ebony, and white part is maple or white fiber. Originally, white part was made of maple. But using maple for purfling is little bit difficult, so recently almost everybody uses fiber type.

At first maker makes trench depth about 1.5mm to 2.0mm along the outline of back and table, and bend purfling material and put it inside of the trench. This process is quite difficult and takes so much time! And it requires much patience!
I wonder who likes this purfling process?! Of course some people might like it, because this part shows makers woodcraft skill so much. I still don't like it so much though ^^;)

Well, to start purfling, at first I have to shave edge part of back along the outline. Because the thickness of the edge part is still 30mm, and it's way thick. I have to decrease the thickness to about 3.5 to 4mm. To remove 25mm thickness of excess wood, I use power tools, chisels, small planes,...etc.
With checking the thickness of edge often, I make desired thickness by using file.
Actually, this took much time more than my expectation, it took almost half a day.
This time I want to make my violin really close to the real Stradivari's violin, so I made the thickness of the edge pretty carefully. According to a violin making book, it sais too easily, "thickness of edge should be 4.5 to 5mm".
In the past I followed this recipe, but this thickness is pretty thick, and I felt it's decreasing the vibration of back and table so much. And checking actual thickness of Stradivari and Guarneri, I noticed they never made such thick edge in their works.
This Stradivari 1721"Kruse"'s thickness in the C-part is 3.9 to 4.3mm, and other parts are about 3.5mm.

Fiouu, I finished all around the outline thickness arrangement! Well, next step is one of the most difficult part of making violin!
(Am I saying this almost every time??)

VSA exhibition

Last Saturday and Sunday, there was an exhibition of VSA in Tokyo. VSA is an association of violin makers Japan. In USA, there is VSA America, I think. The weather was not so good unfortunately, but there were still many many people in the exhibition hall.

Many amature luthiers(like me) belong to this association. And every year about 60 violins, a few violas and violoncells are showed to everybody. This year there were 48 violins, less than usual. But still there were 48 violins which are all hand maid.
It's still worth to visit this exhibition. Because it's good to look other maker's works. It stimulates my making violin desire, and it gives some inspirations to me.

This time there was a white violin too(without varnish). It was pretty interesting for me. Because without varnish, maker cannot hide his mistake on his violin. So, this person must have had enough confidence to show it to everybody. But for me, its back and table's arch looked little bit too square shape. It looked like my first violin, which was also little bit not shaved enough. But it might be that person's favorite style, we cannot criticize them so easily. Some people love to criticize though...^^;)

Me, I had a wish to meet one maker since long ago. He is a kind of my mentor of making violin. He is Mr.Kazuo Kuga, he is also a member of VSA AMERICA. He is trying to copy the sound of Guarneri del gesu & Stradivarius, not just shapes. This time he brought two violins, one is Guarneri, the other is Stradivari type. Luckily, I could talk with him little bit and I played both of his violins.

(Playing my mentor's violin.Guarneri type.)

I liked Guarneri type. Since its lower sound is pretty deep and powerful, it resembles to my third violin which is a copy of Guarneri del gesu 1741 "Il Cannone". It might be little bit less polite to compare mine and professional person's violin, but the
tendency of sound was pretty alike. I was pretty glad to recognize this.
"My violin is not that bad, actually, it's pretty good! Yes!" ^^)
His Stradivari type was also good, treble sound was more delicate and smooth, easy to play, but I felt it had little bit less volume of sound than Guarneri type. But I mean, his work is excellent! His varnish is pretty beautiful.
Someday I also want to attend this exhibition. ^^)

Preparing also the top(table)!

Since I already prepared back side, I prepared table too. Because preparing table is kind of troublesome. If I do this later, I’ll be more lazy.^^;) So I decided to prepare this after preparing back side! I feel this is just 2nd part of preparing back.

This time, I’m going to use nice spruce material which is from north Italy, called Abete Maschio. This material is from same place where Stradivarius took his material.(they say so) It looks great. But the thing is, it’s not cut at all. Usually materials for violin making are cut in the center of them. It’s to make splitting or cutting easier for users. (violin material for back and top is usually cut into pyramidal shape, and provider cuts its center) But the material which I got this time has no cut on its center. It means,(they mean) “Cut yourself”. No kidding. Hehehe!
Some wood sellers are sometimes lazy to cut them, so they sell woods without cutting. Last time I bought woods from Slovakia seller, at that time there was no cutting for back material. It was reaaaaaaally tough to cut it into two pieces.
But this time it’s for top material, usually people think it’s easy. Do you think so? It’s not. Even though it was spruce which seems easy to cut, it took muuuch time! Cutting by this kind of hand-saw, it’s pretty tough work!
While I was cutting it, I felt ”shiiiit, they should have cut this, it’s really easy cutting by machine-saw! They must be kidding.” Of course it was little bit easier than cutting maple though. ^^;)

While I was cutting it, I smelled the young wood from the top material. Since I studied about wood-chemical and wood physic at university, I can sense the young spruce smell. This Abete Maschio is supposed to be seasoned from 2001, but its inside seemed still pretty young. So I decided not use this material for my 4th violin. I ‘m going to use the other one which was seasoned for about 10 years. Of course this material should be more seasoned, but for the moment I don’t have other choice. Abete Maschio will be used for my 5th violin, probably ^^)


(I split the other one and glue the two pieces as you can seen in photo. )

The annual orchestra!

Currently I have a violin lesson at private music school. And at this music school, there is a orchestra concert once a year. Almost all of students who learn playing music instrument gather up and consist a temporary orchestra. This is great. Because I’m just a amateur player, and people like me can not have so many opportunity to attend a orchestra event unless they try to join a bigger orchestra. Usually bigger orchestras (even if they are also amateur and charity )have audition to join them. So, it’s a pretty great opportunity for me!
Two years ago they had a orchestra concert, and I attended it. Last year they didn’t organize it, but this year they’re going to have it again! This year the concert will be taken place in July. Yeah, we don’t have much time for practice. And since we are just students, we can’t gather so often … I wonder is it really ok for the concert?! ^^;)

And last Saturday we had a second practice.(first practice was already done in the end of April ) This time we had almost all of the member except for few tube instruments. This year we are going to play…
Figaro’s marriage(Mozart), Suite No.2 L’arlesienne(Bizet), a few more little pieces, Pirates of Caribbean, STAR WARS!
Classic tunes are kind of ok to play…but STAR WARS…it’s pretty difficult. I wonder why they chose such a extraordinary difficult tune! I’m in 2nd violin part. It’s still better than 1st violin, one teacher told me. 1st people have to play unbelievably high position, and most of their sounds are erased by tubes and percussions. Fiouu, am I still lucky!? At first I really didn
’t like to play this tune, but the more I practice it, the more I like it! Of course I cannot play perfectly, (my teacher said
“even professional people can’t play correctly”) but little by little I think I‘m improving myself and it’s pretty funny!! And behind my seat, there are percussions, so my sound is sometimes erased by them but thanks to them I can feel free to play!!! Hehehehe!! ^^)
We don’t have much time for the concert, so I’m practicing those tunes almost every day. I’ll do my best!!

Preparing the back side(4th Kruse)

(material for back)

After thinking about which part of wood I should use for 4th violin’s back, I started to draw a line on the wood. This time I absolutely want to use these beautiful frames looks like prominence of the sun. But if I use them, I’ll get little bit irregular way of wood fiber’s lines. Usually wood fibers should be straight from neck side to the end pin side. This time my wood has strange fibers which are not straight at all. Because my wood is kilted cut, and Stradivari’s real violin is also using kilted cut wood. So, maybe it’s ok even though fibers are not straight. And it will be also a charming point of this violin, I think.

(Drawing outline along to the outline of Rib)

So, after drawing outlines of back, I started to cut it. But this material has 3cm thickness.
And cutting such a thick maple is really not easy (usually). Usually professional makers use band-saw which is wide belt type saw. But me, I cut this material by this usual electric saw. ^^) My Mr.E-saw was pretty cheap but he is really powerful. He can cut really tough maple board without difficulty. He is one of my treasure!! ^^)


After cutting off the shape of violin. How about this? Maybe it’s easier to imagine when this board becomes a violin’s back, right?! I like these frames, I’m pretty satisfied ^^)

(After cutting. How's this?)

Lining finish(4th) and Preparing Back side

About my 4th violin, I finished gluing of linings last time. After gluing, there's 1mm of excess lining which is sticking out of Ribs.
Using plane, and files, make lining flat and exactly same height as Ribs. This is not so difficult. But difficult part is after this.

(I could put lining inside of corner block pretty well, this time. Yes! There's no unnecessary space inside of block!)

Since lining was glued on ribs, its shape is still rectangle. And usually we make this lining shape into triangle shape by cutting and shaving inside of lining. I usually use small chisell and sharp nife. This process is pretty difficult.
Because we easily cut also ribs under linings. We should not touch ribs but we have to shave linings.

Sometimes we encounter violins which have un-shaved lining inside of them. Since this process is kind of troublesome and difficult, I think some makers omit this. That's why some violins' linings are still rectangle. Actually, my first violin which was made in California was also like this. This process is troublesome, but if we omit this we'll give unnecessary weight on ribs and linings. From the point of sound making, it's also not good.
Some people say
"Vibrations from the top are transfered to ribs through linings. If linings are rectangle, violin loses some of vibrations. It should be triangle shape to make transfering easier."

Of course I make my linings like this.(But I noticed few days later, I can make them thinner. This photo is showing it's still little bit fat)
It's just cutting and shaping linings, but it takes so much time! It took half a day( more than I expected!)

(It's still little bit fat, I'm going to shave more later^^)

After finishing lining, it's time to prepare the back side!
Yahoooy!! It's one of my favorite step!
This time I'm going to use one-piece back material. This material has little bit different frames. It looks like a flame of fire , prominence of the sun, and also surface of the Jupiter.
Which part should I use? Thinking about this is the happiest time of violin making...

Fixing Masakichi No.3010

February 2006
I was wondering how can I fix the Masakichi No.3010. This kind of fixing seemed pretty difficult. One day I tried to push ribs (end pin area) by my hands, but they didn’t move even 1mm. I felt it was impossible to push and glue at the same time just by human hands. So I tried to invent one fixing tool.
At first put a kind of pad on each lower corners of the violin, and using long metal screws and butterfly nuts, it can push ribs back inside of sound box. Sorry for the poor drawing, because I don’t have this tool anymore. I already threw ay such a useless tool ^^;)

As you can see in this drawing, by screwing the lower wood plate pushes back ribs and lower block which were completely sticking out of sound box.
According to my plan, this seemed perfect solution. I made this tool immediately, and tried.

At first put two pads on each corner and get ready to turn butterfly nuts … but even this first set up was already difficult. Corners are pretty slippery how many times I tried to set up tool, it went off from the violin. It waaaas frustrating! I had to try many times…
Finally I could set up this somehow and started to turn nuts and screws…
It was supposed to go back to inside of body, but the reality was not! The ribs went back into the body little bit (about few mm)but after that it didn’t move at all. How much I turn up screws, it didn’t move anymore...and I was anxious if I did too much, it might break around corners. So I gave up and glued block and back. Well, this picture is after the fixing… I don’t have the picture of before the fixing, unfortunately.

Even though it ’s still little bit sticking out of the body, it’s muuuch better than before.
Then, how about the sound??? For me, there was not much difference before and after..hehehe. It might be because of players skill and ability of hearing nice tones though. ^^;)

Receiving 2nd Masakichi Violin

So, I bought the 2nd Masakichi Violin(No.3010), even though I had already two violins! When I received it, the case was really old and looked broken. When I opened the case, it had old smell of stuff. You know, smell like inside of garage?! ^^;) But I like it, because it makes me imagine it was sleeping in a garage for a long while and finally it could get out of there! And destined to came to my place...

(The label is really old and it's almost going away from violin)

It's varnish was really old and weak. When I scratch by my finger nail, I could easily remove it... It means I have to be careful not to damage. And also it had a crack on back side and ribs and lower block(which contains end pin usually) were getting out of shape of violin. It little bit difficult to explain in words... I mean, back side(lower block area) was peeled off from block, block and ribs were pulled by the tension of strings, so they were kind of distorted.

Anyway, I tried to play on this violin. I put new strings on it, and made new bridge, new pegs...etc...
Well, it's time to play!
(I was little bit anxious about the tension of strings though ^^;)
I tried to play the violin...
...
...
Waao. the sound is pretty good. (I thought)
And probably it sounds better than the other Masakichi violin.
This one doesn't sound like cheap kind of steel sound...

"OK, let's bring this to next lesson! "(Hey, you're not supposed fix it before?! )

I showed it to my teacher...she said,
"It looks pretty old this time."
Hihihi! I know!
But there were not much comment about the sound of this violin. I know, the player's technique is still not enough though...

Anyway it really looks like needs fixing. So I decided to fix it. But I didn't have any good idea about it...
I needed to think about it, for a while....
(I liked to play this violin a lot! Hihihi, these animals are my cocktails, they like to stay on my head when I play violin^^)

Getting 2nd Masakichi violin

After fixing Masakichi No.A, I was again looking internet auction.
It was February 2006
…
I didn’t have much desire to buy another violin, since I had already two violins then(made in California2004 and Masakichi No.A ). I got a information from auction, about new items which were started that day. In that information, I found a violin which looked pretty old. It was also Masakichi Suzuki violin.
This time it had a label which says “M.Suzuki 3010”.
This M.Suzuki label violin was made in a really early time of Suzuki violin, and also this No.3010 is really rare item.. the seller was explaining like this.

I thought
…
“Waaaaa, it really looks old… about 100years old?? Waaa , maybe sound is also good. And this varnish, it’s cracked but it also gives good out looking to this violin…
Hmmmm…I want it… but… I just bought Masakichi violin few weeks ago!! Hmmm, hesitation …”
With thinking this, my hand was already typing a desired price of the seller!!! Unbelievable!! I bought it!
“Aaalalala… I bought it!! What will I do with such a many violins?? It ’s third one!! Silly…”
My girlfriend of that time(now she’s my wife) also said exactly same thing to me later!! Hehehe!! ^^;)
“Well, anyway it’s my own money. I don’t bother anybody, it’s all right, right? ”
I told myself… and I was feeling I really can not resist the power of old violin’s looking…

Old violins have kind of mysterious power which we can’t resist sometimes!
Even if it was just a photo on the inter-net
….

Fixing the Masakichi violin

After I received the Masakichi No.A, I played a lot even though it had big split between back and ribs. Since my violin teacher recommended to close this big split, I was considering how to fix it. But At that time, I had almost no tools, even any clamps. So I had no idea how to fix this kind of thing.

I looked for an information about making and fixing violin. I found that fixers use kind of special glue for stringed instruments. The glue is not chemical product, but made from skin and bones of rabbit( it sounds bad, but this is really groval standard glue for luthiers). So I bought this special glue(it ’s called "NIKAWA" in Japanese).

And one more necessary thing was clamps. I didn’t know what kind of clamp is best for this, but I found a picture of special clamp to close sound box of violin on inter-net. This is actually sold at one internet shop. But it ’s kind of expensive!

So I decided to make this by myself. It seemed pretty simple and easy to make.
I bought cheap board and cut it into nice curved plates to fit the curve of violins lower and upper bouts. I couldn’t find nice hand screw like we can see in the picture, so I used 45mm long screws and butterfly type nut which I can screw by hand. But these screws were too heavy, because they had 10mm of diameter! Hihihi! It was silly to choose such thing for this. Mine was not sofisticated at all!!

Anyway I made my first fixing tool by myself. Unfortunately I already threw away it long ago, so I don’t have a picture of it.
C’est dommage… by using this pretty ugly tool, I could close the sound box successfully^^)
But the glue was kind of too thick! Hehehe! After drying it became thick white film on ribs.

Anyway, how was the sound after that? The player was feeling it’s little bit better than before, but actually he couldn’t feel much difference of it! Hehehe!

Buying a second violin

It was January,2006
I was looking at internet auction cite, I didn't have any specific desire then. I was just looking vilin section. Then I found an old violin which is made in Japan. It had no strings, no pegs. And its backside was little bit splitted from rib. Yeah, it was a junk
violin.
I felt "Maybe I can fix it."even though I had never done such a thing!
I had a feeling.
And according to the seller this violin was made by Masakichi Suzuki around WW2. It means it's already about 60y.o.
Hmmm... I want it!!
Masakichi Suzuki is a founder of Suzuki Violin co.ltd. And he made many many good violins when he started his business in
(about)1890s. (I'm not sure the exact time, but I mean it started about 100years ago.) That violin was reaaaally cheap! It was just 100$. I was wondering "Violins are such a cheap items?" Hehehe.


Anyway I was happy to get this violin. Because my first violin was made in 2004, it's still really new. And I wanted to try an "old" violin. (actually it's not even old. 60y.o. is still modern) These two violins are pretty different. As soon as I got the second violin, I set up pegs and strings. I was really impatient to play this violin so much!

I put DOMINANTE on this violin, and played...
...
oooooohhh, it sounds interestiiing.
I felt like the sound was really different from my 1st violin. But actually I think at that time i didn't have enough sence of hearing real good sound. Since I was still just a beginner then. But I was pretty happy to play this violin. Even though it was
lowest rank violin of Masakichi Suzuki.(It had a name of Masakichi Suzuki No.A. This No.A is sopposed to be out of rank 60 years ago.)

(There's no flame on its back nor on neck!)

I brought this violin to the lesson and showed to my teacher.
She said "Actually if you fix this splitted part, it might be better."
Yeh, that's right. Because I hadn't fixed that part. I was playing with one side of back(belly) opened. So much vibration and
sound were escaping from the big space.

The next work should be fixing this split...

Finishing the ribs and Lining

The next day of gluing all the ribs, I removed all the clamps and pinches, and check the result. OK, it's almost perfect except for one part. It was upper block part. Since I thought it's enough to glue by pinching that part, I didn't use gluing pad and F-clamp. But that was bad idea. I could see little space between rib and upper block.

So I had to remove rib of this part and glue it again. It's good to find this kind of mistake pretty early, and fix it. Because later and later it becomes more difficult to fix and troublesome. So, I was kind of lucky to find it soon.

(Finish shaping of corner ribs too. It was kind of good result ^^)

After fixing this part, it's time to complete the width of ribs!As you can see, ribs are wider than mold which is about 30 to 31mm. The first thing to do is shave this excess part by plane. But as you know, ribs are thin and they have strong flames usually. This flame part is quite easy to cause cracks by planing. At this step, I made mistakes in the past. It's really easy to make cracks and losing proper width of ribs. So we really have to be careful to plane these excess ribs. Once you lost proper width, you have to wood powder with glue on it. This fixing method helps a lot for beginner, but it's visible later. So we'd better to be careful^^)

OK, shaving excess part of ribs is completed! This time there was no mistake! Now I don't need thick mold anymore. So I remove the one of back side plate mold. I didn't glue blocks onto backside mold, it was quite easy to remove it. If we put too much glue when we glue blocks, it makes so much difficulties of removing mold.

It's time to prepare the lining material~~~
Usually for lining material we use spruce which is same as table(top). But I've heard that Stradivarius used much softer lining material for lining. It was not just a spruce. (I don't know what it is called in English, but in Japanese it's YANAGI tree.) Usually spruce is cut from pine trees or conifers right? I don't know the tree's name in English so much, but anyway he used pretty soft material for lining.
I wanted to use this kind of material, but unfortunately I can't find YANAGI at any material shops. Maybe there's at Japanese wood shop, but Japanese woods are quite different from European woods, so I don't want use it. This time there was not choice for this, so I used normal spruce. But someday!

Preparation of lining is like one of rib. We should make proper thickness(about 1.8-2.0mm). And then soak into water and bend by hot Iron.


Spruce seems way softer than maple and it seems easy to bend, right? But it's not true. Sometimes 2mm thickness spruce is tougher than maple ribs. And it also easy to get cracks. Eventhough we make cracks, it becomes invisible later, but I can't stand it. Eventhough we can hide such a small mistake by gluing but I think it influences to the result of violin's sound. Maybe(this is just my imagination) lining is also important to transfer the vivlation which is given from table side to upper and lower side of ribs. Because lining's fiber is straight all through the ribs. And spruce's speed of transfering vivlation is much faster than that of maple(?) But it's just my imagination, I can't garuntee it.
Anyway what I want to say is we should be careful for bending this too. Hehehe, it's always just be careful! For violin making it's always be required.


The difficult point is to make exact same length as ribs. I have to match the length of lining from block to block without any space. If we make some space between rib and lining, well, the result is not great. What I want is beautiful sound, without annoying noise! So bending, matching the shape and length, gluing, it took almost all daylong. But the result, I'm pretty satisfied...
Today's point is...
*Be patient! Don't get Frustlated and don't make more mistake!