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Monthly Archives: March 2009

Tail pieces for a pair of baroque violins

Making Patrick’s cello led to a request to make tail pieces for two violins belonging to musicians who play in the same ensemble. They wanted to modify the set up of their instruments to produce a more ‘baroque’ sound and, as a first step they changed to gut strings. The obvious thing to do next, is to fit a lighter tail piece and I was delighted to make two out of a scrap of bird’s eye maple that I had left over from the fingerboard of the cello. I roughed out the shape on the bandsaw and then planed, carved and scraped them to their final shape before staining them. The weight ended up about 7 grammes, which is probably about half the weight of the ebony tailpieces they will replace. It’ll be interesting to see how much difference they make to the sound.

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Baroque cello finished and sent off to its new owner

The varnish on the baroque cello eventually got hard enough to let me string up the instrument again and send it off to its new owner, Patrick Gale, who lives in Cornwall. Patrick is best known as a novelist but he’s a keen and talented musician too and I hope he will be pleased with cello and the sound it makes. He tells me that he taking part in a series of programmes on amateur music-making that will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 later this year. Unfortunately, although he mentions this cello on the programme, he doesn’t get to play it.

Before parting with the cello, I took a few photographs. There are 3 below and more in Gallery.

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