Violin Forum/Message Board

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

The maker is soooo close to being finished!

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

As you see, my friend is not using a traditional method of construction. He was really curious if this "like a ship" method would result in a good sound or not.

The traditional method would have you hollow out the body from a solid piece of wood.

Oded Kishony · Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:44 am Post subject:

Doug Martin, who is a professional boat builder and designer has applied boat building concepts to the violin. There are a series of articles about his instrument that are usually constructed of balsa wood. He usually keeps the rib structures on the exterior of the instrument and selectively trims them to achieve the sound he's looking for. They sound amazing! (try googling 'balsa violin')

Oded Kishony

Oded Kishony · Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 6:44 am Post subject:

Doug Martin, who is a professional boat builder and designer has applied boat building concepts to the violin. There are a series of articles about his instrument that are usually constructed of balsa wood. He usually keeps the rib structures on the exterior of the instrument and selectively trims them to achieve the sound he's looking for. They sound amazing! (try googling 'balsa violin')

Oded Kishony

ChameleonMan · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2009 Posts: 41 Location: Florida, US

That certainly looks interesting! I'd be very curious to how it plays...

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

The maker is working on the spruce top that will complete the Rebec. He brought the half-finished product for me to see last night. It is tiny! But then, all I had to do was use a yard stick to see how short 18 inches is. Laughing

This is a soprano rebec.

He is going to put a small piezo pickup inside the Rebec so I can plug it into an amp.

completion is probably looking like end of May.

He mentioned that his next design will use half the number of ribs. He may even try using a cloth resin body instead of wood. Apparently, the rebec produces all of its sound from the top. The body is just an air chamber.

I will probably be requesting an alto rebec next. He also showed interest in building an electric violin and upright bass for me after having seen the pictures in the magazine. He was like, "they just use guitar and bass pickups. I could build that!"

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

So close to be finished!

The maker is working on the string pegs. He is unhappy with how tight they hold the strings, or how un-tight, I should say. He went with 2/4 violin strings for this 18" soprano rebec. DAE strings.

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

New tuner pegs. The maker has learned that not all violin tuner pegs are created equal.

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

Tonight, I will bow the rebec for the very first time.

caeman · Member Joined: 11 Dec 2008 Posts: 143

The rebec experiment has reached its end. I am returning the rebec to its maker.

The peg problem continues and all three want to loosen and fail to keep tune. This problem could eventually be fixed, but...

The biggest problem is the shortness of the scale. Literally, on the A string, B is right next to the top bridge. C is right next to my finger when it is play B. There is literally no wiggle room. And trying to hit a sharp/flat in such a tiny distance seemed almost impossible.

On the E string, there was no way to play an F in first position. From open E to F#.

I explained all of this to the maker and we are agreed that we should have targeted a much larger size rebec, maybe 24" or 28" in length.