Welcome to our forum. A Message To Our New and Prospective Members . Check out our Forum Rules. Lets keep this forum an enjoyable place to visit.
Currently working on errors from the latest (SimplePress) forum update. Many issues have been resoled and others are being worked on. Thank you for your patience.








Member

About 3 years ago my wife purchased me the StewMac Violin Kit. This is the one about 75% complete. Well I finally finished it!
It required installing purfling, carving the fluting/recurve, carving the mortise and setting the neck, cutting/installing soundpost, carving the bridge and fitting strings, etc. Then Varnishing.
Overall it went smooth, but there were some challenges/frustrations along the way.
Cutting the mortise and setting the neck was quite stressful to ensure it was straight and proper height, etc. but went mostly OK, I did have to add a little filler back in on an edge after I was done.
Next challenge was that I thought I needed to shape the pegs, so I attempted to do one and F-D it up. I then purchased another set of pegs and proceeded to F up another one. The next try I got the 1 peg shaped and didn't touch the other 3 originals. So for now I have a missed match set of pegs that the casual observer won't notice. Along with the pegs, the original endpin was undersized for the hole, so I had to replace that also.
Finally, varnishing, I used the Joha kit, the base layers and color layers went down beautifully, but the final clear coats were very frustrating as they would leave micro-bubbles that needed to be sanded out quite heavily. Ultimately I got it smooth and clean, but there are some imperfections that I can see and a real Luthier would notice right away, but overall it looks really good.
As for sound, well, it sounds great and projects very well with inexpensive D'Addario Ascente strings. I know I'll be swapping these out for better strings, I've actually already ordered a different E strings as this one seemed fairly shrill during initial testing.
The bow pictured is just the stock bow from the Tower Strings Legend set. I just ordered a Fiddlerman Brown Carbon Weave bow to go with this violin.
Not sure why, but the photos all rotated....

Regulars









Member

Thanks, now I just have to practice and get past Twinkle Twinkle!!! LOL
I'll see about getting some video once I get some practice in.
In the meantime, I'm debating what my next project should be.
Thinking about one of the kits from International Violin. They appear to be 1 step up from this as the top is not glued to the back/ribs. After that step up to the one that is rough shaped front, back and rib material.
1 Guest(s)

