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!

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)

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??)

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. )

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...

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!