First steps

The first thing to do was to remove the fingerboard in order to carve a channel through the neck that would later hold the resonating understrings. I wanted to keep the fingerboard intact, so I steamed it off over a kettle. I had visions of the glue melting away smoothly and the fingerboard sliding off under my fingers, but after about 35 minutes of steam time over two days I used a pocketknife to pry it off with an unnerving cracking sound.

fingerboard removed

close up fingerboard

I was pretty happy.

yep

The violin as violin

Before

This is the closest thing I have to a before photo – some of the hardware has been removed, and I’m keeping tension over the soundpost with rubber bands. The black square visible is from a much earlier, somewhat embarrassing experiment in attatching a pickup with velcro.