Your battle with the crack was admirable. When people gloss over what seem to be insignificant details, that take hours of effort to make or fix, it makes the rest of us feel like we are the only ones that struggle. Great video.
Making these small, specialized tools is kind of fun, actually. I made a tiny scraper from the blade of a plastic pencil sharpener. Works great in very small spaces.
Hi Jerry; It's been quite a long time since I commented on your channel. When I saw that fingerboard blank It really brought back memories. The last violin that I made was an electric violin. I wanted it to look especially nice so I ordered an inlayed rosewood blank for the fingerboard. Was I ever shocked when it arrived. If anything it was thicker than the blank that you had. I don't own any finger planes, so I used a half inch drum sander in a moto tool to carve the relief in the underside of it. I used a jointer to thin it. I had to remove between 3/16" and 1/4" of wood from the bottom of the fingerboard. It turned out very beautiful and delicate. The rosewood that I had didn't have the same color as the rosewood we use in this country, so I had to concoct some special stain and let it soak through a couple of days to get the correct color. I wish RU-vid would let us add pictures so I could show you. In my opinion the real reason for not using the salt trick, is that violin is salty enough already. Your workmanship is beautiful as usual. By the way John Wayne in the movie True Grit was a master at his craft too. Thanks for sharing this video. I hope your hands and back are faring better than mine. Keep on truckin.
Almost every time I go to a flea market, I find old feeler gauges for sale under $3. I have likely made at least 100 tools from those things over the years. Perfect for this situation... .015 blade, ground to whatever hook you like with a Dremel.
My bad. I never was good at spelling and that is why I never leave comments. I love your videos and have not missed any of them for about the last two years. I only work on violins, so I love to see how you do things! I just would think that that violin would need a button graft. And I would use the same glue you are using on that. Then I use the hide glue to glue the back back on. I have 27 years working on over 1,000 violins I learned the Bein and Fushi way of violin repair from one of the best shops in Chicago. Thanks for your commenting on this.
I'm aware that you often use thought experiments to solve problems, but I've been watching your channel for a long time, and I think it's safe to say you have more in common with The Duke than with Einstein. Nice job so far.
An interesting aside in regards to the salt debate... Those of us who enjoy classic shotguns might know about the infamous Browning Superposed. Browning used to bury their gunstock blanks in salt to cure them. As a result, guns of this era show significant pitting or corrosion issues, right in the areas where the barrel or reciever meet the wood. It's pretty easy to identify a Browning "salt gun" once you know what to look for and what years were affected.
I think that perhaps the flaw in the ebony wood might be the reason why they made the fingerboard so thick to begin with? That way they don't have to thin the wood and have to repair the damage before selling it?
I don't work on many violins but the few I have and used titebond original instead of hyde glue I was crucified for lol I'm sure you've dealt with the same by now. those people almost always have no videos and are merely keyboard warriors lol
Hide glue is very strong, but gets hard and brittle with age. PVA glue will never harden like that, and retains a bit of flexibility. That does make it more difficult to remove, but I like the PVA glues for most wood joining jobs.
Jerry ** I see allot of comments here about your finger plane***Have you tried to modify the shape of the bass planes from India to make them useful?? Chuck
It looks to me that the crack you were trying to clean out was an old button craft. I would taken the back off an made a new button graft. But what do I know I’m just one of those violin shops that still use Hyde glue for most of my repairs.
It was not a graft it was a split in the wood. Hide glue is spelled with an "i" as it is made from animal hides. So, maybe you don't know as much as you profess
It's only if you had a good way to hold it and if it was extremely sharp because ebony doesn't cut as easy as some other woods, not to mention taking the chance of splitting it.
