Violin Forum/Message Board

[actonern]

I've always purfled after the plates are glued to the ribs and the overhang precisely adjusted. I can't think of any disadvantage in doing the job this way, and yet most pictures I see on the web have makers installing the purfling before the plates are glued up.

Done this way it's pretty much impossible to refine the overhang after gluing the plates on.

Any opinions?

[Andres Sender]

Purfling first is normal modern practice, and goes along with purfling before cutting the scoop. Cutting the scoop before purfling makes purfling a bit more fussy as I understand it. Cutting the scoop after gluing on the plates makes graduation control difficult in the area of the scoop.

I was just reading Hargrave a bit and in the Biddulph book he says something to the effect that the Cremonese probably glued the plates early in order to get the already attached neck properly lined up, whereas modern makers attach the neck after the plates are glued and so can afford to finish the plates before gluing.

Unfortunately I don't quite remember enough to be able to say exactly why that makes sense.

[KenN]

I glue the plates on the ribs, even out the overhang (haven't got that part so good!), and then cut the purfling groove in. Then I drill locator holes, take the back off ( it was just tacked), and finish tune the plates, fit and glue the neck and then glue the back on again. The back seems sooooo much stronger, I don't know why you'd ever want to take the belly off. Doing it this way seems to make sense to me. But I'm still learning.

[actonern]

Andres:

The idea that the Cremonese work methods really benefited from purfling after the plates were glued on makes good sense. If the neck was slightly off centre when nailed and glued to the top ribs the garland could be deformed when gluing on the plates to render it straight... that would also explain why so many instruments of the period made on inside molds nonetheless have a good deal of asymmetry.

It would also suggest that the traced overhang when plates were cut out might have been pretty generous, allowing as it then would for a good deal of "adjustment" after the neck was attached and the plates glued to the ribs.

E

[Dave Chandler]

I've not tried purfling after all is assembled, just seems clumsy work.

I've purfled mine before assembling the plates. Using the ribs while still in the mold, I trace the the outline onto the back using a leather belt that is 3mm thick to get my overhang, and when I'm happy with overhang, mark my purfling, cut the groove and install the purfling, then my edgework and channel, then graduate. As long as the ribs are kept on the form, they should maintain the same shape as when you traced, and should fit the back neatly. I do a lot of back and forth checking to make sure there isn't any movement in the rib assembly.

When I've attached the back to the ribs and removed the form, then trace the top and finish in the same way. My overhangs are turning out pretty neatly the past few efforts.

Again, as long as you don't let the back/rib assembly warp in the interim (you could clamp it to a board while working the top), the top should neatly match the ribs.

For me, its just hard to resist purfling before graduating, allowing you to continue to work the channel without worrying whether you're making the channel too deep, and maybe continue to fine-tune the arching.
_________________
Dave in the Blue Ridge
Southern Violin Association

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm" Winston Churchill

"I took the road less travelled, and now I don't know where I am." Marco Polo

[Andres Sender]

Actonern--I heard or read somewhere that someone trying out the baroque neck setting method found that the amount of distortion introduced by tweaking the neck to be centered wouldn't really be enough to account for the asymmetry we see.

I think we just have a very different esthetic sense than they did. If you're not maniacal about symmetry there are many ways for it to leak out during the course of making a violin.

[Michael Darnton]

S'me. I discovered from making baroque violins that to induce the amount of distortion you see in Cremonese outlines by twisting a bad neckset you'd have to be very bad at putting on the neck--like blind, nearly.

I've offered the alternative idea that in a shop making a large number of violins, as in Stradivari's for instance, the logical process would be to use one mold (and Stradivaris models are each represented by only a single remaining mold each, I believe), making ribsets ahead and hanging them up for later use. Hanging around without the form could result in distortions, and I have a simple and practical way of aligning such distorted ribsets which would not straighten them but would simply align several important locations correctly (the length, and the centering and widths of the c-bouts, in particular) while letting the others go, while aligning the corners in a logical but not necessarily symmetrical array.

[actonern]

So that I understand better, was the baroque neck set on the ribs by cutting a crest in the heel of the neck or were the ribs planed flat in an area to receive the neck heel?

[JWH]

"S'me. I discovered from making baroque violins that to induce the amount of distortion you see in Cremonese outlines by twisting a bad neckset you'd have to be very bad at putting on the neck--like blind, nearly."

What I love about this old instrument is how a maker can build in distortion by having his mold reflect this, and then through added blindness, try and compensate with a slanted neck to get a reasonably even distance between F hole eyes. No label on this one, perhaps for good reason. The violin actually sounds quite good oweing I am sure to some measure of success with the asymmetry. Pinning that heel in real well helps as well.

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[JWH]

Having trouble posting pictures. I know if you highlight the part of the address HTTP---jpg, you can copy and paste in the URL address bar, but how do you embed the picture?

[Andres Sender]

Actonern--neck heel was hollowed (not sure what you mean by 'crest').

Shem Mackey did an article on the process in the May 2005 issue of The Strad. I mention this for interest's sake only. Michael's convinced me doing the joint that way is a waste of time.

[actonern]

Thanks Andres:

I meant to say by "crested" that the heel of the neck was scalloped to tightly adhere to the arc of the ribs. You've confirmed that that's the way it was done, although I'm guessing that making a smooth arc in the hard end grain of the neck would be more difficult than just planing the contact area of the ribs flat!

[Michael Darnton]

I started doing baroque sets by planing the ribs flat, but one time I tested the set by licking the glue fill on the bottom of the neck and sticking the neck to the ribs. The neck broke off very quickly, but what was surprising was the vicious way it tore out the curl doing so.

I instantly realized why this type of neckset failed, and immediately started doing it another way. I soon discovered, talking with other baroque makers, that they were doing the same as I'd figured out, while not saying much about it.

That's a normal, modern, neckset into the block, but in the same position as the baroque neck. A couple of quick cuts with a saw makes an authentic-looking rebate to set the top in, and the top covers the modern dovetail. From the outside, it looks no different from a traditional baroque neckset, but it's much more secure.

[actonern]

Very interesting Michael:

It would seem that the baroque setup, absent the mortise, was far more dependent on the the button for strength... in that vein, is there any evidence the old instruments had a "shallower" purfling groove running through the button region to allow a thicker maple connection to the back plate?

[Michael Darnton]

No, what's there is a lot of old violins with broken buttons. When the wood shrinks, the nail doesn't, the neck separates from the body, and rocks on the nail which is holding the pieces in their old positions, now separated by shrinkage. Then the button breaks.