As you may recall, I wrote a post about the senza system last year (click here to go read it). In this article, I mentioned that I would do a spectral analysis of recordings comparing like-for-like the senza system with a standard dominant string set-up. Well get ready, because the results are finally in!
I am proud to announce that I will be exhibiting at the BVMA Violin Makers’ Day in London on the 15th March
I have recently been finishing off a violin and spent a lot of time on the varnishing and antiquing process. This is the first thing people see when they look at your work, so it need to look as good as possible. As we know, in the end it’s all about the varnish. There is a fair amount of trial and error to achieve the desired look. Sometimes I feel like it isn’t working, but moments later I think it looks great.
With the end of my first year as an independent maker approaching, I would like to take the opportunity to look back on my acheivements so far and give thanks to all the kind people who have supported me.
I recently finished a violin. Have a look at the pictures below.
During the move across London, I came across a brand new kitchen worktop available for free to anyone who wanted it. This inspired me to build a whole new work bench designed exactly how I wanted it to be. New workshop, new workbench!
I recently changed address to get more space. For those of you who had not seen my workshop, please take a look at the pictures below.
With the last violin I built, I came across an interesting problem when I took it out of the UV box. At this stage, I had glued the back to the rib structure and the top was ready, but not glued on the body yet. The reason for doing that was to colour the inside. After a week, I realised that the back had warped slightly and the rib structure had expanded, causing it to be too wide at the top.
Now my top, which was ready to be glued on, didn’t fit any more.
Before going into the techniques I use, I’d like to discuss a little bit about the purpose of purfling. Like every single part of the violin, the purfling is not only there to be beautiful, it has purpose.
I gave much thought to how I work, how I manage my time in order to make an instrument that sounds and looks good. Something of value. I came across the Pareto principle the other day, and asked myself, “How does this apply to the violin making process?”.
