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.

Last of Como

This is my final post on our time in Como and I’ve including some of the best pictures.  After taking the cable car we continued to hike up.  One of my favorite things to do in a place I don’t know is use whatever means to get to the highest viewpoint possible.  In this situation we hiked for over and hour before finding the lighthouse I’ve pictured above.  For very little money (maybe 0.30 euro) we took the stairs to get the great panoramic views I’ve included.

After the lighthouse, we went back down to the town and did a final walk before going to a restaurant for Ryan’s first Italian pizza.  Although he liked it, I would not suggest getting pizzas along the main street of restaurants.  Whilst not being bad, they were far over priced for a rather subpar meal.  We did a final walk around and got gelato before going to the train station to take us back to Cremona.

Como is beautiful and I would certainly suggest visiting if given the opportunity.

Inlaying the Purfling

In my last blog on the progress of my violin I showed the cutting and digging out of the purfling channel.  This blog shows the next few steps starting with the cutting of the purfling.  The hardest part in this stage is cutting the two pieces that will meet at the corner (most instruments have 6 pieces of purfling) in such a way that the joint between the two closes completely and that the corner is aesthetically pleasing.

One of the many things that very people aside from luthiers notice is the shape of the corner purfling.  Depending on the cut and line of corner, a maker can choose is have a longer or shorter point, more or less white or black wood, a longer or shorter bee sting (the extension of one section of black wood beyond the end of the point), as well as the directional projection of the corner.  All of this is already difficult to regulate for a beginner like my self but even more challenging is the attempt to make all 8 corners equal in length, projection, and style.  To aid in this we use the small magnifying glass like that I have pictured above.

After finishing the corners and gluing in the purfling, a symmetrical channel is cut near the edge and over the now glued prufling to create a continuos line from the edge of the instrument into and along the finished arching.

I also have a few pictures from the beginning stages of the arching.  I tried to use a method described in the Strad magazine (the picture with all the arrows) but did not find the method to my liking.

Como Continued

These are a continuation from the blog I posted yesterday.  This time I’ve included two shots from around the Como’s Duomo as well as a few pictures of the view after making the accent with the cable car.

Como

 

For the first time this year my brother came to visit me in Italy.  I suggested he come a week before I finished school so that he would be past the jet lag by the time we began traveling and in the end he came for just short of a month.  He arrived on a Saturday afternoon and the very next day we made a trip north to see a violin exhibition (pictures will come later) and the town of Como on the southern most tip of the great lake Como.  We had superb weather and it was beautiful.  This was another time that the lombardy regional transportation ticket saved us a great deal of money covering five separate trains and the cable car (for lack of a better term) to go up the mountain in Como.  We walked all around the town before hiking to a lighthouse on top of the mountain next to the city.  In total we only spent one day in Como but I don’t feel as though we rushed or missed too much.

Purfling Channel

My final post on my violin that I uploaded in November showed the progress of the violin’s edge work; specifically the corners and the distance from the finished ribs.  Cutting the purfling channel is next step following the finished edge and entails scribing the two outside lines of the purfling an equidistance from the finished edge.  Following this procedure, cuts are made of sufficient depth to allow the purfling to enter the channel when finished.  Aside from cleaning the entire work, the final step is removing the wood as can be seen in the photos with an extremely small chisel.  The entire process is tedious and time consuming but coincidentally is one of my favorite sequences in the construction.