Hi,

Thanks Peter. I never ask for favours from anyone the payback is too large although I've done lots of favours for others using my own resources; materials and even money never charging a penny but when I need help aliens must have visited and abducted everyone.

Large wooden frame saws can be bought through eBay for as little as £12 but as you rightly say it would be very easy indeed to put together such a saw and as to a blade I could buy say a 1" wide bandsaw blade with any number of teeth either wood or metal cutting and out of one bandsaw blade could make a number of blades; round the ends for safety and add an hole at each end; I was thinking of this last night; I like to make my own tools whenever possible; the book might have ideas too. I can cut to 8" deep using my sawbench by flipping the wood over and to finish the cut I could use one of my sabre reciprocating saws or even the Japanese pull saw.

I'm always very careful to be as considerate as possible regarding neighbours; I never make lots of noise before 8 am or after 6 pm; I do any heavy machining during the day and because my machines are powerful they process timber at a good pace; one of the last jobs I did required 600' of wooden moulding; I set up my 3hp Makita router with guides and simply fed the long lengths through in no time at all. I do any machining with the workshop doors closed to suppress noise.

You'll know very well Peter how expensive wood is here in the UK; joinery grade redwood is not only expensive but of poor quality; leave it in a dry warm workshop for a few says and it distorts. Hardwood is even more expensive.

Thanks also Peter for adding the thickness gauge picture; I've watched YouTube videos of these being used both freehand and bench mounted; I'll find it easy to make my own but I think I'll make a bench mounted type then I can use something like box or angle section steel for the frame; I have a welder and plenty of steel to hand.

No apology needed Peter; please feel free to hijack any of my threads; I don't mind in the least just being pleased members take the time and trouble to reply.

I'll bear in mind Touchstone. Bron and I visited a local store this morning this store used to sell a decent selection of crafting materials which Bron liked; very little crafting materials at all now though and I'm not surprised because here in the UK fewer people are interested in using their hands to make anything; sport rules; if as much resource was put into industry as is put into sport then we could be called great once again. So many places I used to buy from have now gone; years ago I wanted a 2" wide x 36" long leather honing belt for the belt tool grinder I made and after lots of searching the UK ended up buying the belt from Dallas; I've just bought the violin wood from Poland. I wanted to buy a Fein Multitop a few years ago these on the web with free next day delivery at £199.99; I wanted to support our local tool store so drove over; these machines were stacked in front of the counter but were marked up at £240 each being identical in every respect apart from price; I explained I had on me £220 cash which was declined; the machine was delivered for £199.99 the following day; I've not visited the store since but have bought quite a few expensive machines online which I now do.

It's increasingly difficult to buy what I want here locally so rather than waste time and fuel running around I just sit at my keyboard and place the order. I'm doing this for what I need regarding making a violin; visiting the craft store this morning was depressing driving through the run down area; I doubt it will get any better either and can only guess as to what things will be like in another twenty years; in the meantime I'll endeavour to do my best making the violin.

We've given tons of good wood away to neighbours who own woodburners; the pictures show one of two 80' tall trees I felled and I've felled lots more shorter trees; I have considered making a kiln because local tree surgeons can usually be heard working nearby; I've used local holly for woodturning and it's a lovely dense wood to work with; I believe willow can be used on violin's and I've felled and disposed of a big willow tree; I'll keep my eyes open for old scaffolding boards these often made of spruce but I'd want them without lots of knots so would need to be choosy. I've got two 20" petrol chainsaws which have seen lots of action.

Our kitchen is mostly made from Meranti offcuts I bought by the car load; it took twenty years before I considered the kitchen finished but who would know how little in money it cost and it's solid hardwood.

It's poured with rain today and has been very dark and miserable; I don't feel like doing anything at the moment but I think I've got a clear day tomorrow so I'll shake off this feeling of doom and gloom and cheer myself up in the workshop.

Kind regards, Colin.

Gordon Shumway said

Retired said

when I need help aliens must have visited and abducted everyone.

err, present company excepted.

  

Hi,

Well said Andrew; I should have added neighbours I've helped so much in the past are never near when I need help they simply disappear.

I've enjoyed lots of help through forums during many years and try to give a little back by way of thanks.

I've just enjoyed a practice session with both my violins and out of curiosity I closed my eyes; I must be improving with using the bow because I did well on the E string using four fingers whilst supporting the neck with the tip of my thumb. Two months ago I'd never touched a violin but now violins have taken over my life and thoughts; I enjoy a new challenge.

Kind regards, Colin.

Hi,

I've just enjoyed pottering around in the workshop pulling out from stock items I might need. My last job before retirement was working for an electric motor manufacturing company this being a huge company supplying motors all over the world. The biggest perk of working there were the skips (dumpsters) I enjoyed raiding and the huge stores. I never ever took anything without permission and I was allowed to raid the skips but the central stores often had a clear out of very useful items I could use; the store staff knew of my workshop interests and they set up a shelf specially for me; anything on the shelf I could have free of charge including boxes containing thousands of set screws and bolts etc. In the shaft department there were two bins containing short bar ends one bin stainless steel the second bin mild steel these being regarded as scrap but perfect for me; I used to work link shift until 9pm and I would cruise on the fork truck to see what goodies had been left out for me by the day staff.

I was generously given permission to bring home motors that were regarded as scrap; colleagues were on the lookout for these and would kindly tip me off; one day two very high quality inverter rated 1.5hp motors had been discarded from the load test department; these are now powering two of my lathes. The "World Series" motors were being introduced meaning many prototypes; I had permission to take as many as I liked again totally free of charge once they had gone through research and load test but only if I promised never to sell any of them to which I was happy to agree so twenty years after retirement my workshop is very well stocked indeed.

Just before Covid I made friends with who is the owner of a metal spinning company; at the time I was just starting to learn metal spinning; he took me under his wing and other than my lovely wife Bron he was generous to a fault; from the very first contact he set me up with aluminium spinning blanks; lubricant and even three professional metal spinning tools all totally free of charge even though I had told him up front I wasn't after favours having a lot of cash on me; since then I've done work to repay his kindness; later visits he generously gave me sheet aluminium; such people these days are extremely rare.

This now has a lot to do with making my violin because I don't need to shop around for items to make violin clamps or sheet material to make violin templates from also I've pulled out two lengths of black iron box section; I've got the wood and now I have lots of items I'll need.

A selection of 6; 8 & 10mm dia bolts and rods; I measured the thickness of both my violins where the clamps will be needed and this on both is 1.5"; when I start to make the clamps I'll firstly have a look on YouTube to see what others have made saving me time experimenting.

Measuring calipers I use on the woodturning lathe for checking thickness.

4' x 2' sheet aluminium I'll be using to make templates from together with the box section steel.

My excellent quality DTI (Dial test indicator) I think I can use this for measuring plate thickness; I use this a lot on my metal turning lathe but it will be ideal for use on the violin.

Rough black iron mild steel box section this at 1" square.

The same box section after being cleaned up with 60 grit abrasive paper to remove mill scale and oil etc. I have both 1" square and 1.5" x 1" rectangular box section; I should be able to make a very solid bench mounted thickness gauge using these together with the DTI but as yet I don't know the size I need to make it. I can easily weld this to make the frame.

I'm sure everything will fall into place and I'll try to add as much detail as possible as work progresses; I'm now off to a good start.

WOW; Hermes has just delivered the Stradivarius book and I've had a quick look through it; great news the full set of violin plans are not only included but are full size; I've also noticed full size plans to make the tools needed. I'm happy.

Kind regards, Colin.

Hi,

Thanks Andrew; I find Olaf interesting and entertaining; he obviously has a great deal more skill in playing and making violins than I have at present; Bron and I are watching lots of violin videos on YouTube; Bron says she wouldn't mind having a go with drums?

Thanks stringy for your useful and infomative reply. I already have tracing paper and I've got lots of printer paper in fact I've just bought 500 sheets of HP printer paper this morning and for anything big I want to draw I can use wallpaper lining paper. However I don't want to play around with these original plans not even to use for tracing or even use with carbon paper; I do appreciate the suggestion though and it's a good one.

Thanks also stringy for the Folkcraft link; I looked at this site a short while ago it in the US; the violin plans are cheap enough at only £9 and cheap enough to cut as templates; the reason I didn't go forward was that I added the plans to the bsket but at this point no shipping cost had been declared; I had to submit my email address etc in order to find out the total cost so I backed off because I'm very keen regarding online security; however with your prod I decided to try again and gave my details; here's the result;

£9 for the plans but £18 for shipping and as seen a typical two week wait but could be months due to Covid. I did post earlier stating I'd looked at buying the colioured finger board stickers these too from the US and only costing $3.50 but shipping was a huge $59.50. This morning having not gone ahead with the £9 order I've received an email chasing the order to which I've politely replied explaining the the shipping problem to the UK.

The world is as you rightly say Peter challenging in fact it's becoming a downright pain. So may guys take their wife/partner for granted; Bron comes first with me above all else and is the reason why it's always good to get out of bed each day; I don't mind telling the world I love her to bits and thoroughly enjoy her company; she's been my best friend since first meeting her 46 years ago we've been married 45 years.

I agree tracing paper is highly useful as is carbon paper; I'm just stubborn and want to keep both this book and the original plans in top condition whilst they are in my care; it's causing me problems but I'm not in a hurry and problems can be overcome.

Yesterday afternoon I phoned around our local printing compnies one only a mile away from us; all could esily print to A2 size and even much larger but not one of them could copy or scan an original A2 size; one kindly suggested trying an architects office which on face value makes sense but why would such an office need to copy when they already have drawn up the details on their computer. Each of the companies would be more than happy to print if I could supply digital images which takes me back to scanning or copying; it's fun isn't it these days getting basic things done that were taken for granted only a few years ago.

Years ago I wanted to increase the size of the bungalow numbers I'd printed out onto A4 paper; I cut these out and having placed lining paper on the bench then supported the numbers above the lining paper I then hung from the ceiling a single 60W light bulb on a string allowing it's height to be adjusted; the shadow was adjusted to the size I wanted and I simply drew around the shadow edge; it worked a treat.

I've been at the keyboard since doing the shopping this morning catching up on mail and also a guy from another forum emailed asking for advice regarding buying a metal turning lathe which I spent quite a bit of time on; dinnertime is imminent so the mornings gone. I'll suucceed with sorting the plans out and now I'm considering it just another small project to focus on; I've got a few ideas including using CAD but I'll update.

Thanks everyone for your continuing support and replies.

Kind regards, Colin.