Welcome to my violin construction album...

page 1

The following pages will chronicle the making of my opus # 16 violin from start to finish.

Here are the French Maple tree planks, out of which I cut the back plate wood. (the long piece is about 6 feet tall. and 2 1/8" thick. This wood was hand selected at a saw mill in France and imported by the owner of a hardwood wholesaler in Portland, Oregon . to the USA specifically for making musical instruments. (The tree was 93 yeas old).

This piece of Engleman spruce grew in Northern British Columbia, Canada at high altitude (4,000' plus). it was cut in 1997 after the tree had died and stood for 10 to 15 years. I counted 300 tree rings so the inner part of this piece grew in 1685! I needed an extra wide piece (cello-size) so that I could make a one piece top plate with diagonal grain (for better sound transmission). The grain is straight and exactly quarter sawn... a beautiful piece of spruce wood. This particular log (# 87) is said to have produced a number of successful instruments by various makers.

The red '87' refers to the log number assigned by the woodsman at Northern Voice Soundwoods. The wood not being used is band sawed off leaving the wood for the top plate with a little extra around the plate outline.

copyright (c) 2004 by David Langsather both words and photographs.