Violin Making 'The Strad' Library, No. IX.

Then, my friends, reward your many anxious moments of thought and work--string your fiddle, for, be assured, you _will_ be rewarded, be your instrument somewhat crude in tone; a...

Many persons of good, practical ability, and moderately versed in the laws of acoustics, with an eye for form, and not deficient in a certain conception of art _as_ art; who hav...

I naturally suppose you will supply yourselves with two benches--good, strong, English made, workmanlike things, one of them to be fitted with a single vice, the other with a do...

The thickness, but more especially the depth of these, is of much consequence in relation to strength and quality of tone. I have found a bare sixteenth of an inch answer very w...

To write an exhaustive essay on this most absorbing subject before us, to go into any manner of detail at all in the present work, is not my intention. It is far too wide, too s...

This last of many complicated and difficult stages must be entered upon with a will, and great attention paid to all details. The fittings used must be of the best, and the stri...

They remind me somewhat of awaiting dinner in a drawing-room after a long walk in wintry weather. It is one thing to get there an occasional whiff of viands cooking in the basem...

As this neck and mortice business is very difficult of manipulation, I will direct you how to cut the end of neck so that a perfect fit may be obtained in the body of violin whe...

I show you, fig. 10, what must be drawn on the back and belly (on the flat, of course) before a chisel touches the wood for excavation. The blocks at either end speak for themse...

There seems a difference of opinion as to where this word originally was used. I fancy in ancient heraldry; but there the word is "pur_flew_" a "bordure of ermines, peans, or fu...

This is the soundboard of the instrument--that which, I suppose, vibrates as fourteen to ten as compared with the back--that is to say, it is recorded that, given equal conditio...

Pressing the plate firmly between the fixed rests on the bench, I take three-quarter inch gouge, tool 22, and proceed to cut a channel entirely round the wood to the depth of ab...

The next operation on the belly is cutting the _f_ or soundholes, and I need hardly say (for it has been so often said, that surely you must all be informed on this point), how...

Cut the three channels across as explained for the back, but in this way:--At the upper nodal point, so that your calipers register bare one-eighth of an inch from one side to t...

There are different opinions as to not only the function or functions of this bass bar, but as to its length, size in height and breadth, and the placing of it by the soundhole...

When you have attached the end blocks to the back, just the width of the ribs and the margin allowed when rib block was made firmly and without cramps, and dressed off next day,...

On plate 19 you will find the outline of a scroll I use generally. I will employ the original from which this was taken now, and mark on a piece of old sycamore the exact repres...

What I have proved is the best way to bend the purfling is this--place the heated iron (plate 5) in the bending socket, and, when all is so that a smart rap of your hand on the...

The label being fixed with thin glue, and all being in order, see that your cramps, both of iron and wood, and accessories, are all well to your hand, for this is a process wher...