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!

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. ^^)