Scroll Carving - First turn.

Scroll Carving

Even long before thinking I would become a violin maker, I was carving wood.
Giving a shape to a block of material or carving right into it fascinates me. So when we come to heads, I feel in my element (I don't say that I don't pressurize myself to the highest beauty!)
I like carving scrolls commonly found on instruments of the quartet, I like too the more challenging head carving found more often on viols. I like both equally. I wish I would be asked more often to carve heads rather than scrolls. One day maybe...

Carving a scroll is much faster than carving a head, but in many ways, it can go wrong easier : there is much more roughing out and a much more extended use of the saw. One has to be extremely careful in making sure to cut right and rough out delicately. Also, it is more likely to be on scrolls that asymmetry and irregularities look like mistakes ! So I cannot rush on this one !!

Fun starts on the head

This time I decided that I was going to carve out the inside of the pegbox (that is the mortice were we can access to the pegs when we want to put strings on or change them) before bringing the walls of the pegbox to their definite shape.
So far, I was taught and accepted that we carve the outside of the pegbox and from that form, we draw and carve the inside. But I actually don't think it is a rule.
And in fact, in everything, conceiving a piece from its center line is a better guarantee for symmetry
Besides, carving the inside of the pegbox is a rough job where very sharp chisels are just not enough for me. So I go back to woodcarving core techniques and use a small hammer to tap on my chisel. One who uses these techniques, though has to remember that wood is made of fibers and these could break or tear under shock. So the hammering stays very mild and the chisels should be razor sharp. Having the walls of the pegbox at the original thickness helped to support the wood where I was working on it.
I spent a whole half a day alone just sharpening three of my chisels and carving out the pegbox took me a couple of days.

For the pegbox itself, I am (loosely) copying the measurements of one of Stradivari's heads - So I can't really go wrong !

Work on the head

I am lucky enough that my husband Douglas Macarthur is one of the best violin makers of the area. Since we like working together, we decided to make Victoria's cello together as we have done, very successfully, before.
The head and neck parts of the instrument are not really the bits most makers start the building with, but there is no rule. In our case, I'm waiting for Douglas to have finished his latest violin so that he can help with the very physical work of starting the body parts of the cello.
The nice bit is that the "wait" means working on the head... one of the bits I prefer working on. Of course it does include some physical roughing out... I don't think any part of a cello doesn't start with physical work...

Once the neck block was squared up, I did saw around the head and neck and that was me back at squaring. This means that all around the cut has to be square with the sides (again to make sure the scroll / head is straight and ultimately the pegs don't look like they point in every direction).

Preparing the wood

The way I make my instruments involves the same mould technique that Antonio Stradivari was using himself (just a little bit modernized).
This means that using the same template you saw before, I built an internal mould around which the ribs will be steam bent and secured. To fix them to the mould, we use blocks (4 in the 4 corners and one at the top and the bottom). For these I use pine. These blocks are the depth of the ribs and then are shaped in the form of the corners.
When the rib structure is ready to be taken off the mould, the blocks stay with the ribs and are removed from the mould. They provide a gluing surface for the plates (front and back) as well as for the ribs.

My following task was to square up the neck block. It is important to have the neck block very accurately square so the scroll itself will be straight and the pegs square to the neck too.
This also allow me to have the neck well straight into the body when I come to it.

We also have to thickness the ribs. In order to keep them more stable while stored and seasoned, rib wood comes about 4 mm thick but are used at the thickness of 2 mm or less. This is a hard and painstaking job... That's why Douglas did it ! ;-)

The Big Pick

My first task was to choose the wood.
All my wood is of the highest quality, carefully selected and dried according strict rules of violin making. The seasoning starts with the sawmill : The selected wood is spotted in summer but cut in the beginning of the winter when the sap is at the lowest. Then it is chopped straight away and stored outside for a year. Then it is brought into warehouses when it is available for sale. I buy mine at that stage and carefully season it for another 4 years at least in my workshop. No fast process in high standard violin making - we make the way it was made when people had time.
The wood I selected for Victoria's cello is a piece of spruce cut in 2004 in the Italian Alps above 3000 feet for the soundboard (also called front). The back is a bit of sycamore cut in Yorkshire in 2002 (I have made all my cellos with this wood for backs, I love it and this is my last bit !). The neck is of English maple cut in 2005 and the ribs are of Romanian maple cut in 2006. When I will come to make the fingerboard, I will use the best Madagascar ebony...

Here is the back pieces and the neck and on the side we can see the template which is used in this case to check the sizes.

On the picture bellow are the front and the ribs bits.

How it all started...

On a clear morning of late summer, I was visited in my workshop by some representatives of the Dunedin School in Edinburgh and by Elizabeth Ballantyne Brown and her husband Dr Alan Brown. Also with them came retired cellist David Edward whose reputation has lasted well beyond the 20 odd years of his retirement. Sure this was arranged and I was waiting for them along with my friend Stephen Adams, cellist of the Scottish Opera who himself owns one of my cellos.
Elizabeth was the godmother of a young very talented musician - she played sax and flute - whose name was Victoria Herrald. In 2007, this young lady was to know a tragic end with cancer despite her youth.
4 years later, at the request of Victoria's mum, Elizabeth set herself to raise funds in order to commission a high standard cello in the memory of Victoria and that cello would be used both to raise founds for musical education within Dunedin School and to be given on loan to a young talented cellist who otherwise couldn't afford such an instrument.
An incredible number of people gave founds generously into the project, especially Victoria close family.
Victoria's grandparents used to live in the building which now houses the Dunedin School, hence its involvement in the project.
I am very touched and very proud to be the one violin maker asked to make that cello. I was also asked to dedicate the instrument in the form of specific art used in violin making...