As you notice, the plates were carefully cut to outline shape, three tops and three back plates.Later we discovered that each set of plate was cut out by one member of the family who used to live in this house. {The dad, the mother, and each of the three boys, then 5,6, and 8 years old.}
I selected what I thought were the best pair and several years later began to shape them into a finished violin; in effect, completing anothers violin project.... but what was the story behind this mystery?
...The one piece top plates are of very even medium width, very well aged spruce... ideal for instrument making; a makers dream wood!
...However, there is another similar set of Birds-eye maple and the remaining set is of plain maple (all these plates are one piece and aged for 50 years under ideal conditions) which should neverthless should also make a fine sounding instrument.
...If you would like to be one of only three possible 'mystery violin' owners, please let me know of your interest...(one is sold already, so only two are left, and I am currently 6/2006, making the last birds-eye maple violin.)
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...After the newspaper publicity about the 'mystery violin' and the free public concert given by violinist Ron Kilde, I was contacted my a man who knew the whole story. His dad was a project guy and he read up on violin making and decided that each member of family should make a violin along with him as a family project! This man was only six years old and still remembers the dad taking the family on a long drive in the family sedan to pick out the special violin making wood and bringing it home. His dad rigged up a band saw and then each member of the family cut out their own plates. (The three boys were 5,6, and 8 at the time.) The dad began work on his violin having the boys help him. They got his violin well along when he had some heart problems which forced him to stop work. Eventually he sold his partially completed violin locally and they stored the rest of the project wood in the back of the linen closed in the open studs of the wall behind a book case. Eventually the wall was covered and the violin wood left inside, where it remained for 50 years until the third owner of the house uncovered the wood when the wall board was removed during renovations.
...Two of the boys and their wives, as well as the present lady of the house who found the wood (and her daughter and husband) were all present to hear the violin concert given on the finished violin that had been started so long ago. A good time was had by all. One last part of the story is that the young lady who purchased the violin (after liking what she heard in the finished product and having watched the progress of the violin during construction) had been looking especially for a birds-eye maple violin!