“The David” – putting a handle on it

With the corpus finished, we are ready to make and install a neck. We start with the raw material, a neck block and finger board.

the neck block
the neck block

We first use a template to trace the shape of the neck on the neck block. We cut out the shape and drill the peg holes.

cut out the shape
cut out the shape

Next we pare away the excess wood around the pegbox cheeks.

pegbox cheeks
pegbox cheeks

Then we carve the first turn of the scroll.

first turn
first turn

Then we carve the second turn.

second turn
second turn

Now we undercut the scroll, carve the volute and pegbox. Clean everything up and glue on the fingerboard.

fingerboard glued
fingerboard glued

There is a lot of excess wood that needs to be removed and the neck needs to be shaped. It is now ready to install on the corpus.

neck shaped
neck shaped

A mortice is cut in the corpus for the neck. This is the most exacting task in violin making. All dimensions are very critical to the function of the instrument.

neck is glued
neck is glued

We now do the final shaping of the button, heel and chin.

neck shaped
neck shaped

We are now ready to clean everything up and setup the violin for playing!

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