never seen anything like this...

wonder who the heck did all these "repairs". there appears to be work done by 3 different people. the last guy did the worst. he's the one that smeared wood glue all over the top in my last post, like jam on toast.

how's this for a neck block?

the sides and back does not match...

 

 the fingerboard was glued onto pieces of pine acting as shims because the neck angle as dictated by the the neck block would have planted the fingerboard about 10mm off the top at the far end.

 

 there's plenty of saw dust used as filler here and there.

here's the top again:

hmm... i know, it's gonna be a waste of time...

on a different note

and if you are in heavy metal...

yes, it's made of aluminum

hmmm...

gotta be kidding!!??

??!!

if you are on a long journey, and you are new, it's your job to slay at least a few dragons on the way... you are expected to! i came across the lizard in the picture above and feel like it's my destiny to piece it back together... kidding. no way!

so VSO#5 has grounded to a halt due to this thing called "life". how inconvenient.

 

this is where i'm at. the art of purfling inlay continues to elude me. i get nightmares thinking about purfling. i get nervous and usually postpone the operation at least twice before i actually do it. you see, i use a purfling router (1.27mm bit for the 1.3mm purfling) and jig that cuts so fast, a slip of the hand means all the work prior just went down the drain. i can do it by hand, but it takes me 6 times longer. missing in the picture is my dead luthier's foot pedal switch. it helps to ease the anxiety a little without having to fumble for the on/off switch after cutting. plus if i had a heart attacking and die while routing, at least the damage to the work will be mitigated somewhat... the Wecheer rotary i use will take all the bits and jigs made for the Dremel tool.

i use violin fiber purfling as opposed to wood purfling. i wanted to make violins one time and ordered a bunch dirt cheap from here, i remember they used to have stuff i could afford... so until my violin purfling gets used up, it's violin purfling on everything. with wood purfling, i can pound the sucker into the channel and later scrape clean for definition. i am reminded of the work of a violin maker whose violas i would kill for. Feng Jiang based in Ann Arbor, turns this turns into this .WOW.

wood purfling kept breaking on me until i discovered stupidly quite recently that it might work better if i bend them first. fiber installs right away and i can get away with murder. BUT i found out (the hard way) that if i pound fiber into the channel, the black outsides take on the shape of the walls of my badly cut channels. this mauls the line and definition of the purfling and makes it look like its about to throw up.

me and my router can't do corners so those are done by hand with a x'acto knife and channel tool. equal treatment for the back.

in short, purfling = hell

 

to be continued

VSO rambling etc

there's work 40hrs a week, and there are kids i have to torture i meant teach... hmmm.... there's only 24hrs a day... where do i find time to practice or make instruments? it's already 1am, i just got done with 3 lousy hours of viola practice and i'm here on the computer and i'll have to be at school by 8am to find a practice room to hide in until rehearsal with accompanist and class etc... and i won't get to see my VSO until late in the evening. ARRRGGGHHH.

so anyway, i thought i would bring on some pictures of old stuff and write a little bit about them.
here's VSO#2:

the whole point of VSO#2 was to see if i could learn wood carving in a hurry. this was my first attempt at carving a human head onto some awfully hard maple. the work of Susanne Küster formed the basis for my inspiration. this fiddle was also the first time i tried routing the purfling channel with a Dremel rotary tool. it was also the first time i tried overboard antiquing.

VSO#2 features a one piece back made of poplar i bought at Home Depot. the sitka top came from Bob Tibbetts as usual. the sides and purfling are from IVC. the maple for the neck and fingerboard i bought on eBay from someone... the accessories i bought from dov-music.com.

concept based loosely on Gasparo da Salò. really didn't quite work out as you can see from the pictures.
i posted it at maestronet.com (one of my favorite haunts in the past few years) and got a lot of very insightful and helpful comments. you can see it for yourself here.

my bridges tend to look like this:

VSO #3 is the viola i've been playing on since it's completion. i have a love-hate relationship with her.

i hear things i like about her and things i can't stand. but it's like having an ugly kid. you learn to love your ugly kid even if no one else will! VSO#3 is posted on maestronet here. "original" design.

and here's VSO#4. based loosely on an Amati bros.

 

as posted on maestronet here.

you can get an idea of what she sounds like at 2 in the morning here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpC69QFi3OA  pretend you didn't hear the mistakes please.

that's all for now