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!

Gluing other part of ribs(4th)

Since I had so much difficlties of gluing C-part, I was anxious about the result. ext day when I removed all small pinches, well, it's not that bad. It was ALMOST perfect. Except for just one part which was not enough clamped to block. But this part will be OK, because I'll put lining wood inside of this part. So anyway this part's block will be removed later.

So this time it's gluing the rest of ribs. But I had to be careful. Because thickness of treble side and bass side and plus upper and lower, allmost all the ribs are different. Of course I made different thickness of ribs previously. So just being careful to choose which one was which part, and which side is top side, which is outer... Bending process is same as last time. Just being carefull not to burn and not to make a crack.

Oops, before writing about bending, there was one more process I had to do. It's shaping the corner blocks! It was still not curved yet, so I completed the shape of them. By separating shaping corner blocks, they didn't get distorted! Yahoooy.


Ok, let's go back to the gluing process. This time I didn't prepare gluing pads, because I have already two sets of pads which I made in the past. So this time I just used them again. After bending all the ribs, I put them on mold by small pinches to make them rest and get new shape. At this process, small holes on mold really helped a lot! At first I thought that maybe they are not necessary this time.
But actually they were really helpful to clamp. (Usually I make just one or two holes along the curve of mold.) So I didn't have to remove ribs from mold even when I glued them. Just removed two or three pinches and lifted up ribs little bit was enough to glue them.
It was quite easy! It's unbelievable I had so much trouble the day before!! ^^;)
This process took just 1 or 2 hours(usually it takes 3-4hours).


This time's good point was...
* I made many small holes on mold for pinches.
That's it! It's a pretty simple point, isn't it? Hehehe.

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.