I recently received a commission for a new violin. This thread will document the process of making “The David”.
The customer requested a new violin made to my Strad pattern. Together, we went through my wood supply and picked out the wood for the instrument. The spruce is Italian and the maple is Bosnian. Both pieces are over 10 years old. The blocks are some very straight grained Sitka spruce that I found in Canada.
The selected wood
The first step is to trim the blocks to size and spot glue them to the form.
The Blocks glued to the form
The next step is to draw the outline on the blocks.
Tracing the outline on the ribs
Blocks ready to be trimmed.
Next, we have to plane and scrape the rib material down to a thickness of about 1.2 mm.
Planning and scraping ribs
finished rib material
Finally, we then trim the blocks to accept c-bout ribs, bend the ribs to shape and glue them in place.
Finished c-bout ribs
Now we trim the other blocks to accept the bent ribs.
Trim the other blocks
Finally, the finished ribs.
The finished ribs