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

by Walter H. Mayson

When the glue is dry and hard, on the following day you must clean all of it away that is showing and superfluous, and use gouges, [52, 54, 22], chisel [21], scrapers [26, 62]. Any cutting of the wood is objectionable; but if there must be a trifle taken away from some part of the ribs to make a bad fit nearer a good one, then be certain to make all smooth with scraper and sandpaper, over and over again, or your work will be uneven at the finish; and your varnish is a terrible shower-up of bad work, my masters.

Following the above is the careful rounding of the edges of under and upper tables with files and glass-paper, as previously shown on the inner edges of the back and belly. Not too broad must this be done, or the somewhat sharp edge which you seek (or should seek) to bring neatly along the centre of the edge, as it were, of a small wave, doubtful whether to curl over on to the body of the violin or not, will lose much in form, and the grace intended be negative, if not utterly lost when under the eye of the connoisseur.

When this is all done, and the corners left beautifully square, save that the sharpness of the terminals are just a little rounded off (not the two points—these must not be touched) wet all you have gone over with a sponge, and clean when dry with No. 0 sandpaper, until you are sure your work will do you credit under the varnish, when you arrive at that stage. Before that, however, we have to consider the cutting of the scroll.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SCROLL.

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 representation of it.

The thickness of the wood must be one and eleven-sixteenths of an inch, ten inches in length—and broad enough to allow the outline to be properly cut for further operation. After I get this cut exactly by a band saw, I place the outline on the wood cut for the scroll, and with a sharp-pointed, hard pencil, prick the holes where the volute has to come on to the sides, both of them. After that, on the face of the wood—that is to say, the front, as though looking at the fingerboard, I mark at four-and-a-quarter inches from end of the head, which is to be the end of peg-box, and three inches from that, the narrow end of said box that is to be cut. Then I take centre of narrow end and mark off seven-sixteenths of an inch—width of said end, five-eighths of an inch for broad end. Then at five and five-eighths of an inch from broad end of peg-box, I take centre of extreme end of wood, here to be one and three-eighths of an inch when ready for the fingerboard afterwards, and I divide it, making a distinctive mark as to breadth and centre. Then, allowing full three-sixteenths of an inch for cheeks of peg-box, I draw two lines, one on either side of centre line, from end of wood to head, so that I just shall catch outer side of each cheek of peg-box that is to be, and which, running on to where crosses the nose of the scroll, gives a width there of bare nine-sixteenths of an inch. Afterwards I mark the three-sixteenths for cheeks of peg-box.

This is all I can mark at present, until I cut with the saw and with the chisels, as shown (figs. 21 and 22), I can now trace lines ready for manipulation of the volutes and the fluting. That of the volutes is my first business. The lines denoting the ascending spirals, and the pencil dots not yet touched, are my guides, and, with small hand saw, [No. 30], I cut very carefully, by a dot at a time just low enough to touch the spiral line at its junction, cutting the bit away sideways, of course, just by the said line, and then a small piece more, until I arrive at the end of where the spiral ceases, at its base; but now that the volute is developing, I am enabled to complete the line, which brings the whole to its actual junction with the mainspring of conception. This, in a very great state of roughness, I show at an angle (fig. 23), and I reverse the sides, cutting the other in the same manner. It is necessary to have the wood firmly cramped to the bench on all occasions.

PLATE XXI.	PLATE XXII.	PLATE XXIII.