Making since 2004
Struck from arcs, tuned by ear.
An instrument begins as a set of proportions on a board and ends as a sound. Between the two there is a mould, two plates thinned by hand until they ring where they should, and a line of purfling set four millimetres in from the edge.
After Guarneri, 1743
After Guarneri, 1743
Body length
356 mm
Upper bout
167.3 mm
Middle bout
113.9 mm
Lower bout
206.5 mm
Plate area
526 cm2
Arcs per side
7
Nothing on that outline was drawn freehand. Seven circular arcs a side, laid on a framework of the body length: two bouts, two flanks, the C, and at each corner a small arc that curves the other way. That reversal is what makes a corner a point.
Set 4 mm in, mitred long at the corners. The purfling line on the drawing is the same outline offset, mitred where the corner turns, and it is the reason a knock on the edge stops at the edge.
15.5 mm over 356.
A long arch down the centre and five cross sections across it. Every one of them is a curtate cycloid, which is the curve makers keep arriving back at, run from the edge thickness up to the crown and scooped just inside the edge so the arch springs rather than sits.
- Arch height
- 15.5 mm
- Edge
- 4.2 mm
- Sections
- 5
- Widest section
- 206 mm
The sections on screen are drawn enlarged, with the scale written beside them, because at true scale an arch of a few percent of the length is a straight line. That is how the templates are drawn on the bench too.
Tapped, thinned, tapped again
A free plate has modes, and two of them tell you most of what you need. Hold the plate at a still point, tap it, and the note is the plate telling you how stiff it is for its weight. Take wood off and the note falls. There is no putting it back.
| Plate | Mode 2 | Mode 5 | Mass |
|---|---|---|---|
| top 3.0 mm | 155 Hz | 340 Hz | 60 g |
| back 4.2 mm | 167 Hz | 367 Hz | 116 g |
Those figures come from a scaling law, not from a measurement: stiffness over density, thickness over length squared, calibrated so Val di Fiemme spruce at 3.0 mm lands where a maker aims. A real plate is decided by the arching and the whole graduation map, and it is decided with a chisel and an ear.
Val di Fiemme spruce over Bosnian maple.
Ground first, then colour, then weeks of nothing while it hardens in the light. Varnish does not make an instrument sound better. Applied badly it makes one sound worse, which is why it is the last thing done and the least hurried.
Top 60 g at 3.0 mm. Back 116 g at 4.2 mm. Plate area 526 cm2 a side.
The f holes are cut once the plate is graduated and never before, because they take stiffness out of the middle of it and there is no putting that back either.
Off the bench
Violin
After Guarneri, 1743
Bosnian maple, one piece back, orange brown
Violin
After Stradivari, 1715
Fiemme top, golden ground, for a soloist in Lyon
Viola, 41 cm
After Brothers Amati
Narrow upper bout, cut for a small hand
Cello
After Montagnana
Poplar back, made over eleven months
And everything else it needs
Setup
Soundpost, bridge cut to the instrument, pegs, nut and fingerboard dressed.
Restoration
Cracks, edge work, retouch and rebushing on old instruments, worked reversibly.
Bow rehair
Mongolian hair, wedges cut fresh, returned the same week.
Assessment
An honest opinion on what an instrument is, what it needs, and what that costs.
Come and hear one.
Instruments are played here before they leave, and you are welcome to be the one playing. Write with what you play now and what you want from the next one, and we will find an afternoon.