Violin

GaryPC, member

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Gary Conway

First coat is Gamboge

Photo: Gary Conway

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Qu. When is a violin a piece of furniture?

Ans. When you don't really know how to play, and have no real intention of learning.

One day I might like to build this or something larger from scratch but this was a finishing project that started with a 'white violin' where the panels and sides including purfling (thin black stripping) are already assembled. All I needed to do was sand, apply base stain, 15 coats of varnish with sanding to 8000 grit, polish, then reattach and finish the fingerboard and nut.  From a catalog I selected tuning pegs, tail piece, end button and chin rest.  Then lastly I contoured the bridge from a manufactured blank and installed the sound post. 

As for how it sounds, I am no expert so can't really say. I did however take lessons for 9 months playing $800 to $2500 violins, and have listened to music passionately for 40 years.  Which rightly or wrongly leads me to think or imagine that it sounds as good as a $3000 to $5000 violin. Total cost was about $1500 and some tools such as reamer and peg shaver are reusable.  Carefully selecting the strings especially the E string plus getting a half decent bow made a tremendous improvement to the sound.  Like all new violins it lacks the amazing depth of a 100 year old violin, but it still sounds quite beautiful to my ears. Most valuable reference was The Art of Violin Making by Johnson & Courtnall. International Violin Company were very helpful on the phone in selecting parts that would work best together.  A cheaper Chinese violin back would have been highly flamed and more classically beautiful but I preferred to go with a less flamed European maple back as I was assured it would sound better. 

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Comments (2)

GaryPC writes: The barrier for me to playing the violin is being able to play vibrato. Without it the sound is flat with most types music. To my big surprise hitting the right note without the help of frets came easily in a few months. One of the 2 teaching methods I tried was Suzuki's method designed I think for kids - but the Suzuki's was excellent for me compared to conventional. Another barrier to staying with the lessons was the weekly commitment while running a full time business. I would hope that in time the Suzuki method would successfully teach vibrato, even to me.
Posted: 11:18 pm on July 6th

OldShavings writes: A beautiful woodworking project...even if of the kit variety. Kudos for wanting to play it, too. Saddest thing ever is to see instruments in the grasping clutches of "investors" who have no intention of playing them. Nice project.
Posted: 11:26 am on July 5th

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