This has nothing to do with instrument making, I know, but it has been such a wonderful year for bluebells in Hampshire that I couldn’t resist posting this photograph.
I’ve also been enjoying making a violin. I say making, but completing would be more accurate. The instrument was started many years ago by Pamela Rosenfeld while attending the Cambridge courses on violin making that were run by Juliet Barker. Unfortunately, it was never finished because Pamela became ill. Having seen Patrick’s cello, she contacted me, wondering whether I might carry on where she had left off. She presented me with a complete rib structure around an inside mould, and a neck and scroll that had already been roughed out and various bits and pieces, including a bridge blank and boxwood pegs. We chose a nicely figured one piece back, decided on the wood for the front, fixed some details and work began at the beginning of March. Here are some photographs of the instument as it progressed:.
And here’s the instrument more or less completed but still to have proper strings fitted and, of course, still to be varnished. It’s loosely based on the Charles IX violin by Andrea Amati, made in 1564 and now in the Ashmolean museum, Oxford. It’s set up in the baroque manner with a light bassbar, low bridge, short fingerboard and simple tailpiece, but the neck is morticed into the top block in the modern way – a compromise that should make it easier for Pamela to play. It’s very light – under 350 grammes – and I’m hopeful that, with gut strings and played with a baroque bow, it will prove to be responsive and lively.
Finely Strung 