Holy expletive, it works!

I am very very pleased to report that the conversion was a success – my fiddle now works and sounds like a hardingfele!! And even without the understrings, the tone of the instrument was greatly improved in the process. Details later, when I post the tweaks I still want to make… for now, pictures.

reclining nude

understrings

a full pegbox

tailpiece

Details

Today I carved a new nut for the understrings from arbutus wood. I had some big chunks for firewood and narrowed it down by axe, saw, chisel, razor, sandpaper… I don’t have photos, but I’d already glued an arched arbutus nut to the underside of the tailpiece to keep the understrings out of the way of the fine tuners. I had drilled four staggered holes through the metal tailpiece and will be using ball-end strings withe the ball on top. After cleaning up the edges inside the neck a bit I glued in the new nut with just enough clearance to get under the fingerboard.

setting the under nut

Also undocumented are the four holes bored through the bridge with a leather needle (I didn’t have a drillbit nearly small enough). I reinforced the wood around them with some glue, but I’m not sure if it will hold under the tension of strings. If it works I will try flattening out the arc a little bit for a more traditional string setup.

On my last trip into Vancouver I visited my most excellent luthier Chris (http://www.kcmstrings.com) who set me up with the tailpin I somehow misplaced, ordered me some gut strings, reset my soundpost and gave me a little vial of crystallized hide glue. This afternoon I melted it down and filled the kitchen with a noxious stench.

the worst smell

My first attempt to reattempt the fingerboard was a massive failure as the glue gummed up too fast to work it. I remelted it, added more water, and gingerly held the fiddle and fingerboard inside the oven to warm the wood and give me a little more working time. I feel like I might have added too much water, but the glue is setting now and I’ll know in a few hours…. I don’t have the right clamps to hold a job like that, but Ryan suggested plastic wrap and electrical tape as an alternative.

super clamp

Trepanning and varnish

After a year of occasionally picking up my giant block of maple, then putting it down again, I decided to try a new tack with the head (I also went and saw some sweet hardangers at the Met, and a viola d’amore which gave me some oblique inspiration).  Having vertical pegs between the horizontal ones seemed like a worthwhile experiment, so I drilled four holes in the head and used a tiny round file to taper them. I shaved and filed down a set of peg blanks to fit, and kept it a very tight fit as there’s no secondary hole for balance. Had some difficulty figuring out how to drill the string holes in the tapered pegs, but my very resourceful brother Ryan made me a little wooden peg-holding device to go into the vice.

and now my fiddle has a mohawk

workshop

After I stripped the head, which I’d left alone the first time as I had intended to chop it off, it was time to varnish. I rubbed in a British oil-painting medium called Liquin to seal the wood, then just used a semi-gloss clear Varathane. I ended up with a few bubbles on every coat, sanded down a lot but eventually had to accept some flaws so I didn’t build up too much varnish. The Liquin brought out the grain nicely and it looks realllly pretty.

clear coat

pegbox