Vacuum

Over the last two days we used a vacuum pump quite a lot.

Here you can see the patch made to correct both the arching and thicknesses of a very old violin top.

After heating the patch, the top, and the cast with the corrected arching, the pieces were glued together. The heat gives a longer work time to the natural animal flute that we use.

In order to properly close the two, we used the vacuum pump first (which gives an equal pressure over the whole piece) as well as a lot of clamps.

Today we made a cast of part of a cello top that needs a new sound post patch. The top was put in a vacuum bag to make the most accurate cat possible while protecting it from damage.

We then mixed the plaster and poured out into the blocked off area needed to support and hold the top stable throughout the restoration.

Here it is drying in the oven.

Finally, here is a picture is of the sunset over the cremonese countryside.  It was the first day without rain in almost two weeks.

Restoration

Bass Bar and a Close Call

I had the closest call to a serious injury when I literally took a piece out of my thumb this year.  I had just finished sharpening my knife up to a razor edge (I test the sharpness by shaving hair off my arm) and was adjusting the leather handle I made for it when I did some crazy movement and ended up with blood.  Strangely enough the first worry was for my violin top because a blood stain would not come out.  I later realized how lucky I was that I only skimmed off the top surface instead of cutting down; all I needed was a band aid instead of a hospital visit and stitches.

The other four pictures are all of the making of my bass bar.  The bass bar is glued into the underside of the violin top and serves to reinforce the top while adding the least amount of weight possible.  There are a number of theories based on the shape and measurements of the bass bar and an equal number focusing on the tension applied to the bar.  The bass bar is fitted in such a way that the ends do not touch wood without bending the top up to meet them.  Simply shaping the bar to the inside curve of the top is one of the more difficult stages of construction and I chose to use chalk to help ensure a good fit.

Cutting F-Holes

Planned

One cut

Two Cut

Unfortunately I don’t have many pictures of the work-in-progress part of cutting the ‘ff’ holes but even if I did the changes would be difficult to see in the pictures.  The ‘ff’ holes are one of the most stressful steps of violin construction in my opinion.  It’s cutting a hole in the violin plate that you just spent so much time making… worse actually: it’s cutting two holes that are supposed to be symmetrical.

Everything begins by cutting out the basic shape with a jigsaw.  The hole is then slowly enlarged using a knife and perhaps files until it reaches a few specific minimum measurements and has an aesthetic line appealing to the maker.  The process is then repeated on the opposite side and in a perfect world symmetry is achieved easily.  If not, like what happened to me, work must be done to the first ‘ff’ hole to achieve the lost symmetry.  If this does not go according to plan, we must return to the second ‘ff’ hole once again.  As you can see this process can continue to detrimental results.  Thankfully mine achieved an acceptable relationship before they had grown overly large.

Last of Cremona

These will be the last pictures of the city of Cremona that I’ll be posting for a while and were taken throughout the entire month that Ryan stayed with me.  Generally we would spend about three days traveling before taking a day of rest in Cremona.  This turned out to be a really nice way of remaining fresh throughout the entire stay.  It also saved us a lot of money in both hotel/hostel fees and the price of food.  We also were able to decide where we were traveling to based on the most current weather forecast.

The first two pictures show the market that comes to Cremona’s Piazza Stradivari and Piazza Duomo every Wednesday and Saturday.  My housemates and I buy most of our produce, cheese, salami, eggs, and honey from the local vendors that come from around Cremona.  I’ve come to realize that the price of food and produce in particular is very much lower than the prices we have here in the States.  For shoppers, the market is a good place to find discount clothes or any number of other oddments at great prices.

The following pictures are from the Tarazzo of the Cathedral of Cremona.  For only five euros you can climb the stairs to the very top for a great view of the surrounding area.  On especially clear days you can easily see the mountains.  The last two pictures of the second row are actually of my house.

Finally, I included two pictures from a sushi buffet (named Hayashi) that we went to with some friends.  For a very reasonable 12 euros you can order as much food from a menu as you like and it is brought to the table freshly made.  I like this restaurant model and wish I could find a place like it here in the States.

Plate graduation (digging out the back)

Once I’d completed the arching on both the top and the back I continued by graduating the thicknesses of the plates.  This is widely believed to be one of the most important factors in the sound quality of the finished instrument.  I did a great deal of research prior to beginning in the hopes of shedding some light on this mystery.

Being very science oriented I particularly liked and article by Nigel Harris (http://www.violin.uk.com/), a luthier from London, who has written a number of articles on the acoustical properties of violin making.  The particular article made use of an equation he had developed to quantify the stiffness of an instruments front or back based on its weight, second harmonic mode, and fifth harmonic mode.  Research has concluded that each mode correlates to the resistance of and thereby stiffness of a plate in a specific direction.  For example: the first mode correlates to a resistance against a torque-like twisting motion of the plate; instead the second and fifth modes relate to rigidity in a longitudinal and latitudinal sense.

I had difficulty arriving at my target stiffness for both the top and back plate due to the excessive weight of my maple and spruce.  This could be due to the wood not been aged particularly long or perhaps I could have removed more from inside the plates.  Either way, I gained a much deeper understanding in how to alter the harmonic modes of a violin plate and now have baseline data with which to compare my subsequent instruments.

 

I know this was somewhat technical for the majority of my reading audience but hope that even so it shows just how involved instrument construction is.  Furthermore, I wanted to mention that all the pictures I include in my blog can be enlarged by simply clicking on them.

Barbeque in Cremona

For nearly the entire year my roommates and I had talked about having a barbeque on our roof and s school was finally winding down we found ourselves with the free time to make it happen.  I made thai fried rice, chicken satay, thai peanut sauce, and lime caramelized bananas over ice cream.  We also had home made break baked by Carlos, sausages, and roasted marshmallows at the end.  Not only was it beautiful and super tasty but it was a great way to spend time with some of my favorite people in Cremona.

Cremona Continued (Mostly Duomo)

This is the second of three posts on Cremona, all pictures taken by my brother.  Obviously almost all of these pictures are of, around, or from inside of the Cathedral of Cremona which is one of the most impressive churches I’ve seen in Italy.  The fact that I walk by such an amazing building on my way to the grocery store is one of the strangest things I’ve experienced living in Italy.

Cremona

While I’ve already posted some pictures of Cremona in the past, my brother took these and I think they give a slightly different perspective to some of the same things (the weather was also superb.)  The first and second show the Duomo and the second the square out front of my house.  The second row is mostly random; Beom-Seok and I waiting to pick up our violins after the competition, a church down an alley, and the courtyard inside a neighboring house.

School Pictures

These are an assortment of pictures  from my school and above all from my restoration class.  Some time early in the school year my friends and I took to making overly cheesy pictures of us working on instruments.  Interestingly enough the word cheesy does not translate well into Italian and after thoroughly explaining its meaning to my friends we found code words to make up for its lack in Italian.

The remaining pictures show things like the work of my maestro when he was bored in school one day, my roommate opening a violin’s sound box, and the workshop where I spent the majority of my time in school.  One of my favorite pictures is the last one of my and about half of my class.  I think it perfectly depicts the greatest aspect of the the violin making school in Cremona: the vast cultural diversity that is constantly present.  In my small class of twelve people we represent eight different nationalities, a thing I think would be very difficult to find elsewhere.