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

by Walter H. Mayson

CHAPTER IX.

THE SOUNDHOLES.

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 the drawing, the placing, and the cutting of this most crucial test of a man's powers as an artist or workman, determines the extent of one or other, or both; for a man may be the one, and show himself a blockhead as to the other. You ask for originality, and you find copy, copy all over the world; yet you may suddenly pounce on a line or two not seen in combination before, most abominably in juxtaposition to their entire opposites in curve as they are in grace as in character. For example or examples, suppose I found, crowning the severe, almost rigid column of the soundhole of Del Jesu, the mobile bend of Stradivari? or, at the turn of the companion lines of Stradivari, the Gothic arch of Del Jesu? with the base of each of a like nature—do you think I should pass such without a severe growl of condemnation? And yet I have seen such; and I scarcely expect to go on to the end without seeing more of such incongruous monstrosities, but I trust not from any one who can give one thought to character as applied to form.

Fig. 13 is a rough example of the soundhole which I shall presently stencil on to the belly just ready for it. As you will notice, the soundhole is cut out of a piece of paper which follows the lines of one of the lower corners. So, upon the corresponding corner of the wood to be cut, I place this that represents the soundhole, exactly; and I dip a small stiff brush into lampblack, not too wet, rather dry than otherwise, and I dab on to the belly through the cut impression of the soundhole—then I reverse the paper, doing exactly the same at the other side of the wood. Of course, I know beforehand that the impressions will be anything but perfect, or clear, or alike; but I have a way of making them so in cutting, and you, many of you, I hope, will soon acquire the same power. The general feeling of active form, as I may say, must guide you; because, to have the stencil plate by your hand as you seek to give vitality to the dead form impressed on the wood, is one thing, but to copy it slavishly, even though it be your own design, is another. In one word, you must always create, no matter what work you are engaged upon, and, in this case, two as original soundholes as lies in your power, and resembling each other as much as you can cut them, but—cut by an artist.

PLATE XIII.

Proceeding to put you in the way of doing this, I bore a small hole with the little piercer tool [0], and, inserting the fine cutter of fret saw, tool [69], inside the belly, so that I have the upper side to the eye, I press the said fine saw into the slot of the screw, and, with spring pliers [51], I fix it for cutting. Then I hold the belly with the left hand level against the lower part of my breast, and cut out a rough passage round the inner part of the soundhole, never touching the line, though, but leaving that for the knife [8], which follows.

Where I must especially caution you in the use of this fret saw, is at the upper and lower points which face the holes, as they are so liable to snap there, especially at the lower. Still, with care, you will manage to do this neatly and safely, as you see I have done one, and now proceed to work with the knife mentioned.

This knife, as you see, is very much worn, and is very thin and very sharp. And the two latter characteristics it must possess, as you will one and all of you find when you come to use such, for, as I cut from the inside, the steel continually cropping up here and there, in curves and near to corners, I must be prepared at any moment to work up or down, backwards or forwards, with the grain or against it, until I get somewhat of the shape I wish. But not nearly all I want; so I trim the longer lines until they bend gracefully, ready to fall as does the head of a rocket before it bursts, or give a majestic sweep at the base where they terminate in the spread wing. The apertures at the summit and base I round carefully off; the cuts at the centre of the figure, as a break, as finish to what was unfinished without it, and as a guide to determine the position of the bridge.

And you will conclude this finishes the one soundhole; but it does not, for after I have dressed down the work on the outside with No. 0 sandpaper, there is not a clean bit about it—not a curve or sweep or any part true; and when I retouch it all over, and damp it all over after doing that, when it dries, there are still bits I don't like, and patiently trim it and touch it once or twice again, as I have done to many a poem, to be, perhaps, only engraved in water, or ice at the best; typical, not only of its reception by the world, but of its ultimate starvation and ignominious effacement by the coming warmth of an inspiration congenial to all.

This being at length quite to my mind, I cut its companion as true to the lines of the other as possible, fig. 14, when I take in hand the placing of the bass bar on the belly, in the rough, preparatory to toning it down in shape, etc., when the glue has set hard.

PLATE XIV.