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.