By Sam HarperMe making a violin
Making the plates
I've been a little concerned about making the front and back plates. You have to carve them in an arch, you see. First you shape the outside, and then you hollow out the inside, and the thickness really matters. I always read as much as I can before trying something so scary. I've been doing a whole lot of reading about arching. It's an interesting subject. The main reason violins have arched tops and backs is because there is so much pressure from the bridge and the wood is so thin. If you want the violin to last for hundreds of years, you have to arch the front and back.
There are a lot of different techniques for getting the shape you want. Some people use templates. They rough it out with a gouge, then use a thumb plane while checking it against the template, then use a scraper to finish it.
Some people copy the templates from famous violins such as Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri, or whoever. Other people design their own. I read an interesting article a couple of nights ago that explained how people design their own arches. If you take a plastic lid or some plexiglass cut in a circle or something, poke a hole it in off center, put the lid against a straight edge, put the pencil through the hole, and role the lid along the straight edge, the pencil will draw an arch. And you can vary the size and shape of the arch by varying the size of the disc and how far off center the pencil hole is. Brilliant, I tell you!
But I did not want to design my own arch just yet. I'd rather copy another violin to ensure I get close to the ballpark. I searched the internet for arch templates I could print out, but I couldn't find anything. Bummer.
Then something great happened. Yesterday, I was helping my friend, Rachel, move. She had some posters with pictures of violins hanging on her walls that she was going to throw away. There was a poster of an Amati violin from 1766, a Guadagnini viola from 1785, a Gagliano cello from 1704, and a Rogeri violin from 1704. Yeah, they're all Italian. Here's the Amati:
I told her I'd be happy to take them off her hands, which she was agreeable to. I began to take them off the walls, and when I looked at the back of them, what to my wondering eyes should appear but detailed dimensions! They even had the arch drawn on different parts of the instruments, so it will be very easy to copy them. Check it out!
What are the chances of that happening? I had just been searching the night before I helped her move. It's providence, I tell ya!