Violin - Kowhai #3 2024

 

 

Violin - Kowhai Design #3

This instrument is the youngest, being completed in May 2024.  It is currently being played-in, but is still available for any interested players.

Sourced from Switzerland, the back and ribs are maple, and the face is spruce.  The body design is the same outline as used for the Kowhai violins. 

The face is carved from spruce, with f-holes cut long to help with the voice. 

The neck is of conventional measurements, and from maple.

The instrument is finished in a combination of pure garnet shellac, and a single coat of my shellac/rosin varnish.

As with other instruments of my Kowhai design, I carved a Kowhai flower and leaf motif around the back of the scroll.

As with my other instruments, the fingerboard, chinrest and tailpiece are all carved from the same piece of Rimu.

Mandola

 MANDOLA

This is a bespoke Mandola, created using recycled native timbers.

I created it for a performer, so included a pair of piezo contact mikes.  The face and back are from a Kauri board that I had to mill down to the right thickness (chisel, plane, sand...).  The sides are larch, using remnants from the Appalachian dulcimer.

The neck and faceplate are Rimu - the faceplate is dyed (iron and vinegar) black and shellacked.

I laid a sheet of Teak veneer over the fingerboard before fretting.

All in all, a tidy Resonator Mandola that has a great, rounded tone.

Here are images from its construction:

Tuning Tricks

 Violins do not stay in tune.

It is an inescapable fact.  The strings stretch, and continue to do so until they wear and break - and then you start again with new strings.

The strings are anchored at two points - the peg, and the adjuster - or tailpiece, if not using an adjuster. The tail end - tail or adjuster - are quite stable, but the pegs are not.

FACT - strings will never go sharp on their own, as that requires an increase in tension.

Strings will always go flat as they stretch, and the peg eases back slightly.  This can be caused by changes in the air temperature, as well as a stretch response to the string tension.  Warm air will cause the strings to soften slightly, and the wood expands. Also, low humidity can cause the wood to dry slightly, with a slight shrinkage resulting. Combined, these can cause the peg to loosen slightly, easing off tension on the string.

So, How to set up and adjust strings...

PEGS:

1.    The peg must be lubricated.  This can be as simple as rubbing a pencil lead around the wood, as the lead is actually graphite mixed with clay.

2.  The strings should be wound from the anchor hole back towards the peg hole. As winding increases, the string pushes against the pegbox, pulling the peg into the hole, helping to secure it against slippage.

TIP:  If you cannot easily grip or turn the pegs, use a peg-winder.  These fit over the peg, and give both a secure grip and increased leverage to turn sticky pegs.  They can be bought online and in music stores - guitarists always carry them.  Just ask for a string winder, no need to bother with naming the instrument.

ADJUSTERS:

The common adjusters are simple levers. As you tighten the screw, it pushes down on the angled lever which pivots, pulling the string tighter.

As a rule, it should never be screwed right down at its tightest.  The lever becomes perilously close to the violin, and if you have a low bridge the lever can impact with the violin face, both scratching it and causing a buzzing rattle when you play the instrument.

FACT:  The scroll is not purely decorative.  If you do not use adjusters on the lower strings, you must tune using the pegs.  The scroll acts as an anchor for your hand while you use your thumb and forefinger to turn the peg.

Useful tool:    Smart phone.  Install a tuner app.  There are many free ones available.  

SET UP:

The adjusters should be barely screwed in, through to moderate tension only.  To correctly set up the peg-adjuster combination:

1.  Ease off the peg

2.  Tighten the adjuster until it is just over half-full tension

3.  Turn on the phone tuner app of your choice.

4.  Tighten the string using the peg until it is slightly sharp

5.  Ease off the adjuster until the string is in tune.

The adjuster should now be on the lower side of tension, so as the string continues to stretch and go flat, you can easily tune it up using the adjuster.

Note that if you reach a point where the adjuster is screwed right down, reset the peg-adjuster combo using the steps above.  This way, until the string is totally stretched, or if the peg slips (warm, or dry air) you can keep the instrument tuned using the adjusters only.

 

Double Bass - Repair

The half-sized student bass arrived suffering from an earlier repair.  The neck had been repaired - with screws -  and reset, but the angle had been too flat for the bridge.  Worse, with the fingerboard in place the action of the strings was too high for the bass to be playable. The bridge had been lowered by taking wood off the feet, to the point where new wafers had been glued on to reinstate the feet profile. 

Still too flat, the neck had been pulled forward.  The concave bow had popped the fingerboard off.

Note the curtains, visible through the gap.

The repair involved three main elements - the neck, the nut and the bridge.

The neck was planed flat, removing the bow.  This had the effect of removing four mm from the height of the heel.  The two small screws were removed before planing, and their countersinks redrilled before their reinstatement.

A piece of recycled Rimu (tongue-groove flooring!) was cut and shaped to form a wedge, which was then glued onto the neck, taking care to cut a rebate to keep the screw heads exposed.

  

I then glued a strip of maple to the base of the nut, raising it to counter the slight elevation of the fingerboard.  The fingerboard end was then shaved to counter the new angle, and the fingerboard reinstated.

The edge of the fingerboard, wedge and neck was then dressed and refinished with linseed oil, shellac and rosin finish.  The fingerboard, simply painted spruce, also had a couple of cracks glued, and refinished with black wax polish.
The bridge was the final part.

Each of the feet had ben shaved so high that the feet were grafted slivers of maple.  Owing to the new angle of the fingerboard, the bridge was now 15 mm too low.

I cut two blocks of maple, and shaped the top and bottom surfaces of each to match the concave contact surfaces of each foot.  The blocks were then glued to each foot.  Not visible are the two spruce dowels (aka violin sound posts) that were drilled-glued into each foot, providing structural support to the joins.  The blocks were then sawn to shape the legs and feet of the bridge.
With final finishing and feet shaping, the bridge was fitted and the bass restrung.

Oak Violin

 

Violin - Oak Design #1 

THis instrument is the youngest, being completed in December 2022.  It is currently being played-in, but is still available for any interested players.

With some American White Oak remaining from the viola, a new violin was in order.  The body design is the same outline as used for the Kowhai violins.  A curve in the wood will influence a natural wave in the width of the sides.

Once shaped, the sides were taken down to reduce the effect of the curve. 

The face is carved from spruce, with f-holes cut long to help with the voice.  

The ribs were cut from the same piece of oak that the back was carved from.

The neck is of conventional measurements, and from maple.

As the back and ribs are all oak, I carved an oak leaf and acorn motif around the back of the scroll, using acorns to define the button profile.

The back developed a slight warp, so the assembly was sectional with some slight

reshaping of the sides.  The end peg hole was reinforced and reshaped before shaping the neck  button.

Appalachian Dulcimer

 

Appalachian Dulcimer

A client brought this to me fresh from her closet.  Apart from the obvious - peg box broken off - some of the side seams had come apart, and the shellac finish was tired.

Since I have an ample supply of spruce sound posts, I used one to form two dowel pegs to reinforce the repair. Measure twice, drill once.  I have no intention of ever reopening this join, so I used construction PVA.

The side seams were straight-foward, using hide glue and clamps.  As for the finish, a light sand followed by a single re-oil using 50:50 boiled linseed and turpentine, and blonde shellac. Two coats, wet sand, one coat, polish and wax.

This is a four-string Dulcimer.  I strung it with light-gauge steel guitar strings - D-B-E-E, and dropped the tuning on the B/E strings to get the traditional D-A-D-D dulcimer tuning.

A couple of the frets were proud, giving some ;local buzz, so I filed those down to give a clear sound through its range.

It is a rare opportunity to work with one of these, so naturally I took the instrument's measure for future builds 👴

Viola - Oak Series

Viola - Oak Design #1 

With the arrival of some American White Oak, a new design was in order.  As with the Kowhai violins the shape is after Guarneri rather than Strad, with wider shoulders.

The oak has performed exceptionally well.  The tone is deep and resonant, with a dark warmth that envelops the player's ear.  The harmonics are particularly rewarding in the lower strings, and can confuse an electronic tuner - both C3 and C4 are heard!

This was first strung in mid-July 2021, and then a weeks spent in tuning the set-up. Sound-post location, second bridge cutting, reset the neck angle and shaping the fingerboard were all part of this process, and completed July 22, 2021, ready for a period of regular playing to develop the sound.

And as for the development of this instrument...

Back and sides:    American White Oak, cut from the same board
Face:    Spruce
Neck:    Maple
Fingerboard, Tail and Chin:    Rimu - cut from the same board

Shaping the back highlighted how much harder a wood oak is than maple, but slow and steady, with a repair to a hidden flaw in the timber brought the oak back to a smooth finish that highlighted the natural grain.

The face is carved from spruce, with f-holes cut long to help with the voice.  

The ribs were cut from the same piece of oak that the back was carved from.

The neck is of conventional measurements, and from maple.

As the back and ribs are all oak, I carved an oak leaf and acorn motif around the back of the scroll, using acorns to define the button profile.

The finishing started with a  traditional glue-rosin grounding, applied with help from my apprentice.

Varnish is a combination of blonde shellac/rosin on the darker oak and garnet shellac/rosin in the lighter spruce.