Violin Forum/Message Board

BK · Member Joined: 10 Apr 2011 Posts: 60

Well said.

John Cadd · Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 7:26 am Post subject:

This is to help BK. You need to leave the purfling job till much later on. The edge should be thick enough to survive all the carving of the plates. Leave the corners wider too. They will get damaged if you cut near the final dimensions. Then the edge line has to be smooth enough to guide the scratch tool that indicates where to cut the groove. Call it a purfling scratcher as it is a better description. The edge can be cut to a good ( substantial) thickness in the purfling zone to give a base for the arching crossways and longways. That is an early stage.The cut marks on the surface look as if you are using a flat chisel. You need a gouge at this stage. The corners of a flat chisel will do a lot of accidental damage. Get good quality cutting tools that stay sharp. They are usually harder to sharpen but cut for longer.There is plenty of information about tools on the net.Avoid too much grinding on sharpeners . Keep the edge cool when you use them. Dip them in cold water if you need to.The angle of the edge is important. Read all about that. Carving tools are sometimes sharpened in a different way to carpentry chisels .They polish both sides of the edge...........Never cut "into the grain" of the wood. ......Read all about that.So if you make a purfling groove you should turn the wood around to cut the other side of the groove. That`s an essential part of most violin making. If you forget that one idea you will struggle. Good luck.

John Cadd · Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:22 am Post subject:

Looking at the belly picture I can see lots of traces of cuts inwards. Make all the cuts downhill away from the centre at that stage.Don`t have a narrow lip that has to be broken off. The blade should slice all the chip cleanly to leave a shiny surface . Avoid any leverage on the wood fibres. You may leave small cracks in the wood otherwise.