Dan Lawrence Violins

Welcome to Dan Lawrence Violins blog.  In the near future I will begin documenting the construction of a copy of the 1580 da Salo viola.  Keep checking the page for updates and photos.

Thanks for looking!

Dan

Here is an image of the genuine 1585 Gaspar da Salo viola.  Originally measuring 15 3/8″, I have scaled it to 15 3/4″.

Spent a lot of time deciding on which model to use. Initially I was drawn to an Andrea Amati but was not able to locate drawings or detailed photos. An examination of my library turned up a Strad Magazine poster of the 1585 Gaspar da Salo viola which I find quite charming. The beautifully detailed photos as well as outlines and measurements provided all the information needed.

I had a copy of the photo made and scaled up 102.4% which results in a 15 3/4″ body. I trimmed the photo at the purfling line and glued it to a piece of 3/4″ plywood. Cutting around the photo produced the form or mold upon which the rib garland will be constructed.

Here’s a photo of the form with the rough spruce blocks lightly glued in:

The outline of the corners is transferred to the corner blocks and the excess trimmed. Since this determines the outline of the corners, this has to be precise. The carving needs to be perpendicular to the plane of the plates so that the ribs line up properly with the top and back plates.

The ribs are thin strips of flamed maple cut on the quarter. They are first sawn from a block and planed down to 1mm. thickness and trimmed to even width:

The ribs are now ready for bending:

The shape of the outline has been determined by the form and the trimmed blocks. Now I need to bend the ribs to match this shape. The thin maple strips are quite brittle, so it requires moist heat to bend them. I acquired this neat old bending iron from the estate of Chester Watts, a nice old man who helped me get started in the violin business over 30 years ago. I’m sure it was old when he got it (this is a violin joke…ask me about it some time). It has the necessary shapes to bend the ribs. It’s thick cast iron and holds the heat evenly. A propane torch provides the needed heat.

A quick dip in the water bath and the ribs are ready to bend

I use a thin sheet of lead on top of the rib to keep from cracking the wood.

Trial and error eventually produces a rib the shape of the form:

Now that all the ribs are bent to shape it’s time to glue them to the blocks.  Remember that the form will eventually be removed, leaving the garland of ribs glued to the blocks.  We start with the “c” bout ribs, as the remainder of the ribs will join them.

The c bout ribs are beveled and the upper and lower ribs are glued to the blocks and joined to the c bout ribs.

The other end of the ribs are glued to the upper and lower blocks:

The process is continued until all the blocks are glued and joined.  Note that the upper and lower ribs have not been trimmed yet.

I was a little concerned about joining the ribs at the tailblock, but thankfully it came out ok: