The Body:

     The first thing that i did on the violin body was to find a chunk of wood suitable for my design.  I chose Cherry because of its Nice color and texture.  I cut the violin body side profile from a large piece.  I then cut the top profile from the body.  I shaped the neck of the violin to match the neck of an acoustic violin s closely as possible.  In my design I wanted everything about the violin that might be contacted by the user during playing to match as closely to an acoustic violin as possible.  This would allow anyone who can play a violin to pick up this instrument and find it familiar.

     After cutting out the body i shaped it using rasps and the belt sander.  Having already made the pickup, i was able to cut the slot to receive it.  I was careful to take into account the needed height for the strings to make sure that they had proper clearance (roughly .1 inches).

The neck of the violin has been all but completed.  The head has been left rough. 

     Here is the head of the violin Finished.  The groove on the left is for the nut, this piece lifts the strings away from the neck and bends them down.  Too low and the strings will buzz on the fingerboard, too high and the violin will be unplayable.  Once again i took dimensions for this piece from my acoustic violin.  The  next groove (parallel to the nut) is for the string retention piece.  This will be machined aluminum and will hold the tension of the violin.  The strings will be held in place by the "ball end."

     `The right hand picture shows the fluting on the underside of the head.  This serves no purpose but is an aesthetic reminder of the traditional acoustic violin.

     I needed to create a cavity within the body of the violin to house the electronics and wiring and another cavity for the pegbox.

Seen above are the electronics cavity made by first drilling out with a Forster bit and then carving them out to perfectly fit the potentiometers shown below.  There will be four 500kOhm potentiometers housed here along with the capacitors and wiring.

The two holes on the side of the body are for the tuner barrels.  holes for the mounting hardware can also be seen.

This channel is cut into the side of the violin to house the ribbon cable coming out of the pickup.  This will be covered up when the violin is finished.  This channel needed to be on the outside so as to go around the pegbox.

Seen here are all of the cavities on the violin body. The pegbox is in between the electronics and the pickup.  The G and D strings are tuned from the left hand side.  The A and E are on the right.  I needed to make this part as strong as possible because of the large tension force from the strings.  Note the holes have been drilled for the bridge, which serves no acoustic purpose.  All in all, the acoustics of the this violin were designed to absorb as little of the strings' motion as possible so that it can be "picked up."  In reality, the magnetized pole pieces will dampen the vibrations of the strings.

At this point, the body is completed, it only needs to be shaped to the finished product.  However, before i did that, i wanted to create the chin rest and the shoulder rest so as to integrate them into the body as seamlessly as possible.

Chin Rest:

The chin rest was designed to feel like the chin rest of an acoustic violin.

I started with a quartersawn cherry log that i had dried for two years after it had fallen over at a relatives house.  Above is a small piece of the tree.

My experience carving wooden spoons was indispensable for the chin rest as it is essentially a large salad serving spoon attached to the violin.  I carved using chisels and a violin scraper.

I then clamped it to the body of the violin and tried out various positions before settling on the best feel.  I could then drill the attachment holes.  There would be two holes: one for an alignment dowel and another for a bolt that would take the tensile force applied trough the violin and shoulder rest as the violinist plays.

Here is the finished chinrest.  The aluminum plate takes the strain of the bolt.  The rib on the under side gives the chinrest some extra strength while maintaining the light aesthetic look of the thin chinrest.

The Shoulder Rest:

I designed the shoulder rest to match my favorite shoulder rest design.  I had decided to make the rest out of a laminate (for strength), but i needed to decide how to attach the rest to the violin itself.

I eventually decided upon a simple tension bolt to hold the shoulder rest onto the violin.

To create the curved shoulder rest i fashioned a mold from some scrap pine.  The mold matched the shape of the shoulder rest used for my acoustic violin.  I disregarded any excess that was not load-bearing.  Seen above in the left picture is a close up of the mold.  On the right is the pile of spruce veneer used for the laminate and the original shoulder rest flanked by the mold halves.

Because the individual laminates are malleable the initial bending process very easy, no soaking or steaming was necessary.  I used standard Titebond woodglue.  On the right is the contoured rest after a night of drying.

     I used another piece of the cherry log to attach the shoulder rest.  The blue in the left picture is chalk.  I used the chalk to find the areas of the rest that did not match the block.  By pressing the two pieces together, a small amount of chalk is deposited on the high points of the other piece of wood.  These points are lowered and the process is repeated until the joint between the two pieces of wood is perfect.

     The shoulder rest is held in place by the same bolt as the chinrest meaning that when disassembled, the violin is four pieces.

The Bolt:

The bolt is relatively simple.  Consisting of a stainless steel shaft (harvested from a dead printer), a knurled brass top, and a rivet to hold the top in place.  The bolt threads into a nut embedded in the shoulder rest.

This nut will be embedded into the shoulder rest.  On the right is the mini-lathe used to bore the hole in the knurled cap.

I drilled through the cap and inserted a nail that will be cut to length and hammed into a rivet.  on the right is the cut to length bolt with the end faced and sanded.

The nut, made from a short length of aluminum "femur reamer" (the inserts used in full hip replacements, i found a bunch at the local dump and use them for everything)

Assembling the Violin:

This is a picture of the first assembly of the pieces of the violin.  The joints are not yet contoured so none of the parts flow together.

After contouring.

Using a belt sander and sandpaper i contoured the body to give the violin graceful curves and smooth lines.

The body, and the rest of the violin is now ready for paint!

I used a semi gloss minwax polyurethane for the finish after sanding it up to 1200 grit sandpaper and polishing it with steel wool.

On to the Finish!