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More protein and first varnish layer.

Well the glue dried and held the violin together and as I thought the outside of the violin got quite a lot of glue on it. I was able to sand the excess glue off, it took a while but I got there in the end.

One of my friends who makes her own resin jewellery very kindly gave me a few sheets of super fine sand paper today 600 grit to 1200 grit. The sand paper I had was 180 grit and although classed as "fine" sand paper, it wasnt.

So this evening I sanded the outside of the violin (again) starting with the 600 grit and working through to the 1200 grit. Oooooh smooth! the super fine sandpaper made the wood feel like gossamer silk.

Next I started on the protein layer on the outside. Although I used egg white inside I decided I was going to use gelatine for the outside. The advantage of gelatine is you dont have to beat it for ages and ages and ages like egg white. As Im working on the outside now I have to be concious of neatness. So instead of slapping gelatine on with my hands I'm using cosmetic sponges. I figured if they can apply make up evenly to a face they can apply gelatine evenly to a violin.

I chopped up 4 sheets of Dr. Oetker gelatine, added 200g of water and put it in my bowl/pan double boiler so I can heat it slowly and gently.

I applied the first coat of gelatine then dried the violin with a hair dryer. Did the same with a second coat.

The violin felt really rough now, no longer super smooth. I think the water must have lifted the grain in the wood or something. So I sanded it off yet again with the 1200 grit sandpaper and applied more coats of gelatine. After two more gelatine coats I was satisfied.

I then moved upstairs to the spare room and set up everything needed to varnish. I intend to do all the varnishing in the spare room because its easy to keep the cat out of there while I work and I can have the window wide open for ventilation. Theres also a hook attached to the ceiling in the spare room and I intend to hang my violin from this hook while each stage is drying.

First layer of varnish applied very, very, very, thinly with a sponge here is what it looks like.

I have to let this layer dry totally 100% before I do anything else if its not totally dry the finish can crack. I'm probably going to leave the violin hanging in the spare room until next weekend at least.

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button, pegs and glue

Progress on my violin has been on hold for a few weeks as I have been waiting for a special tool to arrive. Well it arrived this morning. It's called a reamer its like a tapered metal rod that has some sharp edges. Its designed to shave off excess wood when twisted. The special thing about it is that it is taper is 1:30 which is the same as the button and the pegs. The reason the end button is tapered is because it is not actually glued into the violin. The taper on the end button helps hold it in place when it has to hold up to all the tension in the strings. The pegs are tapered again to prevent them from slipping, unravelling and keep all the tension in the strings held down.

So I started shaving out the drilled holes with the reamer. I was suprised how quickly I was able to shape the end hole and fit the button to the end of the violin. I'm very happy with the fit, its very secure. There was no way I would have been able to do this without a special tool

I was able to fit the pegs too. This went very smoothly.

Eventually I will trim the ends off the pegs and sand them so they look round. I am going to have to take them out again when I varnish. The pegs had a tiny pre-drilled hole to hold the string. I was initially doubtful that this hole would be in the right place but it seems fine.

I actually compared these new pegs to the old violin I currently play. The pegs on my old violin are much much shorter and I know they have been replaced at least once. I think every time the pegs on my old violin have been replaced the hole has been re-scraped shaving more of the wood out of the holes gradually shortening the pegs and making them look stubby. I like how the pegs on this new violin don't look stubby hopefully they will be easy to turn and tune with 1 hand.

I also started the mammoth task of trying to glue the violin back together tonight. I mixed some more hide glue and started by gluing the piece of ebony called the saddle back to the top plate.

I then spread the glue around the edge of the bottom plate, pressed the top plate to the bottom plate and clamped it together. It was very messy work and I have got glue on the outside of the violin. I'm going to wait until tomorrow to examine the join in more detail. I may have to apply more glue. I know I will definitely need to sand the excess glue off the outside once its back in one piece.

Hopefully the glue will hold. Once I get it well glued back together and cleaned up, next job is varnishing. I'm planning on using oil varnish and at the moment I'm estimating at least 5 thin coats.

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Getting ready to close the lid

So the inside of violin has been primed with raw egg and I thought I was nearly ready to close and glue the lid back on. The only task left to do with the violin open is to fit the end pin.

Then I suddenly realised, this creation needs a label!

Now generally violin labels can't be trusted. If I had a penny for every violin out there that had a label saying "Stradivius" I would be very rich indeed. It's sadly also common for violin dealers to remove labels, swap labels and fake labels all to try increase the sale price.

I decided my label needed to be a straight talking no-nonsense job. Just say who made it, where it was made and when. There is no doubt that this is a modern violin and I'm not going to pretend it isn't by writting Stradivarius inside it. As for saying it's made in England when some of the wood was cut and glued in China I don;t have a problem with that. When it arrived from China it was not a violin, it was an empty box that was violin shaped.

So using a caligraphy pen in my neatest writing I wrote out my label and stuck it inside using a small amount of PVA glue

Hopefully in hundreds of years time the label will still be there and someone will appreciate knowing its age and origin :)

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Ooops repairs needed already!

After applying the protein layer to the inside of my violin the wood must have expanded and contracted because it became very visible that in my enthusiasm to take the lid off I had cracked the wood in two places at the top.

This was not a major catastrophe violins of all ages can get cracks in them and can be repaired. I was reading this article a few days ago about how many Stradivarius violins have had extensive repair work and that people are starting to believe that the secret of their amazing sound lies within the many imperfections.

These cracks are fresh and they need sealing as soon as possible. The prefered method to fix cracks is to stick them back together with hide glue.

So I mixed up my first ever batch of hide glue. It comes as little amber pellets without instructions. Searching the web again I found various different ways to make the glue everyone having their own opinions on the best way. I used a double boiler method by placing a bowl in a saucepan full of water very similar to melting chocolate.

I mixed the glue and water using a cocktail stick as I was creating a very smalll quantity. I used 1 tsp of glue in 1 fluid oz of water. The internet was telling me I should heat until a skin formed on the top. This took ages, making me think I had used far too much water.

Eventually when there wasn't much liquid left in the bowl it started to develop the consistency of glue. I immediately applied to the cracks using the coctail stick. The cocktail stick application method wasnt very effective so I used my finger to work the glue right into the crack.

Once the glue is applied a professional would clamp the wood together so it was held while it dried. Unfortunately I don't own any posh violin clamps so I held the cracks together by putting some elastic bands around the top.

I'm not going to take the bands off until tomorrow but already the cracks are looking much better on the outside.

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Coating the inside with protein

This may seem like a slightly weird thing to do but I'm about to coat the inside of my violin with raw egg.

I'm not crazy there is a reason for this. I've read a lot about varnishing violins recently and professional makers seem to take this subject very very seriously indeed. When a violin is varnished, the varnish apparently has to sit on top of the wood. Its important that the varnish sits on top and doesnt soak into the wood because if the varnish is absorbed by the wood this hinders vibration. The way makers for hundreds of years have been making the varnish sit on top rather than soaking in is by coating the violin with basically protein.

This stuff has many different names. I've seen it called everything from protein ground to vernice bianca. I've read that this stuff can dramatically improve the sound and tone of a violin because it seals the microscopic gaps in the wood with a substance which has elasticity helping it vibrate and make sound.

So I need to cover my violin in a protein layer inside before I glue the lid back on and close it. I also need to put a protein layer on the outside before I think about varnishing it.

Now the problem comes when trying to determine what to actually coat the violin with. There are many many different ideas and recipes. A popular receipe seems to come from an American book about violin making published in 1987. The recipe can be found here however I am not convinced that water, sugar and honey are going to help. I put this stuff under varnish I will have water molecules trapped under the varnish.

So I am using my own variation on the recipe to coat the inside of my violin. My recipe will also form a layer of protein however is much simpler to produce as it only requires 1 ingredient... egg.

The protein that I'm after is called Albumin. Wikipedia says that only about 10% of an egg is made of protein so I need to extract it from the rest of the egg white.

I separated 2 egg whites into a bowl

Then beat them until they were pretty stiff. The action of beating egg white unravels all the lovely proteins and thats what changes the colour and consistency.

Now this is the clever part after beating the egg if it is left it will start to separate and the liquid that gathers at the bottom is the albumin protein that I need.

I separated the albumin into another bowl and used fingers to coat the inside both bottom and top including base bar. After finishing the bottom the top was dry again so I reapplied and continued working this way until I had used all the albumin.

Interestingly when I went to wash my hands afterwards I noticed the egg had formed a thin water resistant skin on my fingers which is exactly what I want it to do on the violin.

Applying the first albumin layer also really brought out the shimering maple flaming on the inside of the violin like tiger stripes.

I'm hoping the back will have this pretty shiny tiger stripe pattern after I have varnished it.

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Drilling the end hole

I decided that the next thing I should tackle was making the end hole in the violin. I need the end hole to be done before I attempt to varnish so I can poke a stick or a pencil out of the hole and use it as a pivot while I put the varnish on.

I don't own any powertools however having just recently bought a house and also needing a drill to complete a DIY task in the bathroom I figured now was a good time to invest in a drill.

The drill I got was a Draper drill and it came from Wilkinsons. It was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. I measured the diameter of the end pin at 7mm so I also purchased a 6.5mm drill bit. Two types of drill bit were available in the shop one for masonary and one for metal. I figured if it can drill through metal, it can drill through wood too and I bought the drill bit for metal.

The reason I bought a drill bit half a mm smaller than the size of the pin that is going into the hole is because on a violin, both the end pin and the hole it sits in are tapered. I think the reason they are tapered is because the pin that goes in the end is not glued. It just sits there and has all the tension from the strings pulling on it.

My plan is to make the hole smaller than the pin then to get a special tool called a peg reamer and work the hole until it is the same size as the pin.

Drill charged up, location of hole marked, I started drilling. Drilling very slowly and carefully. I haven't drilled many things before so I was very cautious.

*tada* my violin now has a hole in it.

I also ordered the tool I need to ream out the hole (ebay) but it may take a while to get here as its shipping from Canada.

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New Year New Project

Ok so its a new year and I wanted a new project. I've been wondering for some time now how hard is it to make a violin. Well not just make a violin shaped object but create an instrument that is actually playable. I decided this year I am going to try make my own violin. After doing a bit of research on the internet I figured the cheapest and easiest way to start would be to get a "violin in the white" basically an unfinished violin and finish it and set it up myself. I soon realised the easiest way to obtain a violin in the white without spending a fortune was to buy from a Chinese maker. Chinese violins generally have a bad reputation. Chinese makers churn these things out at an alarming rate but I figure if I'm buying it unfinished then at least I will have a fair bit of control over the finished instrument. So I went to ebay and bid on the cheapest unfinished violin available at the last possible moment on Boxing day. I won noone else bidded (I guess they were too busy sleeping off Christmas).

This is the auction I won. It was a bit of a gamble really as the listing said "I will Sent at random one violin for you when you pay for it is success." You know you're buying from China when Stradivarius is mis-spelt.

But I couldn't argue with the price, winning bid £24.56. And sure enough 8 days later I received this in the post...

General impressions, not bad. It is made of the right type of wood (spruce and maple) the inlaid purfling is pretty reasonbly done. There are traces of glue on the fingerboardless neck maybe someone tried to glue a fingerboard to it previously then took it off.

The maple on the front has patches of grey colour running through it. This is probably the reason it was very cheap however this area will eventually be under the fingerboard so I'm not too bothered. I shook it and it rattled however there was no sound post inside. I had already decided the first thing I was going to do was open the beast and see what Chinese hands had done inside.

I've never opened a violin before I'd only ever read about how to open one on the internet. After 20 mins of attacking the seam around the top with a stanley knife I was able to get it open. I don't know what kind of glue was used in China to assemble this violin the first time, but it certainly wasn't hide glue. The top was stuck so securely and so invisibly I recon they must have used some kind of super glue.

I carefully examined inside. The ribs (sides) had been lined with more maple, this was a good sign. The rattling sound was caused by a large wood shaving which was floating around inside. On the inside of the top there is a wooden strip called a base bar. This was the main reason I wanted to open it up.

Internet research revealed to me that the base bar should be at a slight angle to the grain of the wood to help strengthen when the strings are on. I checked, well done Chinese violin maker the base bar was indeed at a slight angle.

The expert opinion of Hans Weisshaar Shipman (some guy that has written a lot of book about violin making) says the base bar should be 5.5mm to 6mm wide; - ok my violin base bar is 5mm wide not far wrong.

Hans goes on to say the basebar should be 11mm to 13mm high at the center, 9mm to 10mm half way between the center and the ends, tapereing to 3mm at each end; extending in length to 4 cm short of each end of the violin top plate (measured along the line where the bass bar will be mounted, not the center length).

I measured the rest of the dimensions. the distance from the ends of the violin was fine, but it wasnt very tapered and was too tall. Heres a picture of the base bar just after I opened it.

So using the stanley knife (probably not the best tool for this job) I started shaving off wood and checking with a tape measure trying to get the base bar as close to the measurements provided by Hans Weisshar Shipman.

This is what it looked like after I had finished.

A definite improvement and hopefully the first of many.

This is what a basebar created by a professional luthier (Lance Bellamy) looks like

I'm happier now my basebar looks more like this than it did before.

I think the next big task is going to be drilling the hole through the end block so the button that holds the tail piece has somewhere to live. Time to start researching online the best way to do that. I also really need to think about buying some sand paper.

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