Thank younfor these!! Ive been wanting to start my own instruments and start a shop here in my town that does not have one. Im buying my first tools this koliday season and am so grateful for your tutorial vs the more traditional violin making videos as you promote the use of available and local woods as well as have a resource as to which ones have worked for you!! Me being from texas and not having acess to spruce without ordering for decent cost i am grateful to have your advice for using cedar which is everywhere down here 🎉
Thank you for these. You have been answering all the questions that I have had. And you are breaking it down in a way that is SO EASY to understand what you are talking about.
Great video. I appreciate the the practical, common sense approach to the build as well as the use of non traditional woods like oak and cherry. I have used persimmon. black walnut, butternut, locust, cherry and others in my mandolins and they all can work just fine.
Thankyou-- wow--thats quite a track record! I would love to build a mandolin for myself. Haven't researched it yet. I will have to find a decent resource.
“Talent is always conscious of its own abundance, and does not object to sharing.” -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -One of my favorite quotes. Thank you for sharing with all of us.
By stretching the lining into the corner block, you will strengthen the garland at the edge of the block from not breaking. That's how I have understood the need to bring them into the blocks. Nice series of videos by the way
Thanks! I would guess what you said to be true to an extent. 3 things: the gluing surface at the corners is already huge. The garland never ever stands alone. It has a top and back affixed to it which makes it immovable. No violin ever failed structurally at the point of the lining-to-corner junction. I think it's tradition. Hundreds of thousands....maybe millions of factory violins have been made and are currently made just the way I constructed mine. Thanks so much for the comments!
Thanks @@grandpasmountain. I just thought I I would share what I was told last two weeks when I attended my very first violin making workshop. And you know where the question came from. From your video. I watched your series of videos twice, every minutes of it. I found the answer from Michael Darnton (the teacher at the workshop) on my question to be quite reasonable and thought I share it. Let me tell you how much I have enjoyed your violin videos.
Well, Michael Darnton is pretty awesome, and I wouldn't have openly disagreed with anything he said. In "violin world" there is a lot of "tradition" that is followed that is not based on science. I am a natural critic and tend to go my own way and prove my own theories. I drove my teachers nuts in school! Construct your fiddles the way YOU feel is best. Thanks so much for the kind words, and thanks for writing.
Everyone moves to power tools and the art of hand work is rapidly being lost. The antique tools are made of far superior steel than anything you can get today.
Damn this is good information. I always wanted to play fiddle and wanted to make one too. So far all the steps seem well within my grasp as a craftsman. I do have questions though. Can a fiddle be made of any wood? I have an entire tree worth of sweetgum and several hickory trees that I have at my disposal. I never see sweetgum used for anything and would love to use it for something. I think for such hard woods it would be easier to literally sand to shape with aggressive grits on a belt sander and then more on an orbital sander than simply carving all that. And are there alternatives to hide glue? Perhaps pine pitch glue? What is wrong with regular old titebond wood glue? Thanks in advance
You can make a fiddle out of anything you want! Different woods simply effect the sound. Not always a negative, either. There's nothing as good as hyde glue for instruments for many reasons....but, hey, guitar guys use Titebond!
@@grandpasmountain Great, that’s wonderful to know. I use a lot of titebond at work and I’m learning to make pine pitch glue for setting socket type arrow heads onto shafts. It’s a primitive hot glue very similar to hide glue
@@edmiller4149 that's terrific! You're well on your way. Thankyou so much for messaging me. Feel free to email me. Riding on two wheels at g mail dot com. No spaces
Great viewing Jon 👍🏽 do you ever sell any of your violins ? Just curious...I don't want to buy I'm happy with my old strad 😜...this made for good lunch time viewing haha
Jon Mangum I can relate to that Jon I'm a qualified stained glass artist by trade I don't do it anymore though...anyway I made one of those Tiffany lamps for myself 450pieces not excessively large but small pieces so very fiddly..anyway I had people ask me to make them one ...and I'm Like hell no lol...you couldn't pay me enough to warrant me making you one...so I totally understand you not wanting to part with your fiddles.
@@adamgc73 People are so used to cheap Chinese junk, that it has devalued skilled labor. Even if one were to get paid a measly $15 hour for building a violin, he would have to charge over $1000 in labor alone, let alone the material cost. A hand made instrument is worth $2500 and up. I can't imagine what your lamp's value would be if you figured your labor at a reasonable $50-60 an hour, plus materials.
Hide glue is reversible, as instruments will need a restoring it will be easier to wipe out ( and to open the violin in the first step of a restoring), and its much less jelly than vinilic white wood glues, so the sound can be transmitted easily.
Yes, wood glue will work as long as you can clamp properly--- BUT!! Hot hide glue requires no clamping pressure for a glue joint, can be released with heat and moisture for repairs and do-overs and can glue to itself. Titebond and other wood glues CANNOT adhere to themselves, making repairs or do-overs a nightmare. Acoustically, hide glue is superior. Non toxic, re-useable, releaseable, and just plain awesome.
While there IS an outline to trace, International Violin had an awesome sale and I bought the stainless steel outlines. The Strad posters are pricey, but designed for violin makers specifically.
I would trace the outline of the top, then draw a line inside that one minus the overhang and thickness of the sides. Usually about 4mm. I wouldn't trust a purfling line.
@@bluehoo0 There is no wrong answer here. I think I'd buy the ones from International Violin. There is nothing wrong with having your OWN pattern. Look on makingtheviolin.com -- you can down load a Stradivari pattern there, but the guy has modernized the curves to represent what he believes was the original shape. I have another pattern here drawn by an old maker and it is kind of a "best of" pattern from Guarneri violins.
