Fiddle Update

It's been some time since I've updated my fiddle-making progress, and in answer to some inquiries I thought I'd better post some pics. Believe it or not I'm still hard at it, and have actually made some good headway in recent months. I'm starting to really believe that someday I will be actually playing this thing.

I finally finished the fiddle back, which literally took MONTHS. Granted, I didn't exactly work on it every day, but I really think had I carved it out of marble it would've been quicker than the cement-like cherry! It's been worth it, though...even though I put in twice as much work as the two other fiddle-students, my cherry back is much prettier than their plain maple backs. I'm really glad I didn't cave and give up on the cherry in favor of a softer wood. Believe me, it was harrowing getting it to the finished point. Many weeks I thought I'd be done, only to hand it to Violet for inspection and get a "nope, not yet" or "what's this hump here?" or "I can feel sandpaper marks"...but, I appreciate her honesty, otherwise I'd see mistakes later. Patience is tough.

After the back was finally proclaimed "finished", and after I did a exuberant victory dance, I had to go back to the sides and get them cleaned up a bit with some very fine sandpaper, then carefully measure and fit the back to the sides with clamps. Since it'd been so long since finishing the sides, they'd changed shape just a tad, so I trimmed the back just a bit for a better fit. Then, with some special fiddle glue which smelled something like dirty feet wrapped in an old dog blanket, I very carefully applied the glue and clamped (and I mean CLAMPED) the sides and back together. It was an extremely nerve-wracking day.

Once the glue was good and dry and all the friggin' clamps were removed, I could cut out the top. For this I had two pieces of sassafras wood which I'd glued together last fall since it wasn't wide enough for a one-piece. Once the top was cut, it was once again time for the fear and trepidation of using the hand-ax in order to quickly get the wood to shape:

Luckily I didn't whack off anything important, including fingers, toes, or any other appendages. Unlike the experience with ax-ing the back, this time I didn't chop off any large chunks which had to be glued back on, and soon it was ready for finer knife work.

Along with working on the back, I also started work on my fiddle neck, again out of cherry to match the back and sides. I wish I had more "in progress" pictures of it, but I wasn't actually sure it would turn out the way I wanted so I didn't bother with pics...oh well. I knew from the beginning that I wanted a unique fiddle, and that I wanted to do something different for the neck than just the traditional scroll. Violet did some of hers with a horse's head, and I thought I'd do the same. Until, that is, turkey season. You might wonder what turkey season has to do with fiddles, but turkey hunting requires a lot of time just sitting and doing nothing, which really lets your brain do some wandering. While sitting in the woods waiting on that elusive gobbler, I happened to notice an oak leaf curled up, which reminded me of a fiddle head. Viola! There's my unique idea, and here is my fiddle head. It's not quite finished...and it's of course not perfect. During it's carving I had a plethora of discouraging guesses as to what it was going to be by other people, including a manatee, a hippo, a cat, a softball, and flower. I have to say it wasn't doing much for my confidence. I wish I'd been able to curl the leaf under a bit more, because now there's a flat area that just doesn't look right. But, I'm experimenting with carving a few little acorns to glue in that flat spot, which I think is going to turn out pretty cool.

Carving a slot into which the neck fits was also an unforeseen challenge - and again it's not perfect. I keep having to remind myself that this is a learning process, and my first one WON'T be perfect, no matter how careful I am or how hard I try.

So, this is my fiddle so far...minus the top, fingerboard, tailpiece, pegs, sound peg, fine-tuners, and strings.

In case you're wondering I'm also still playing - I'm now up to 26 tunes, if you can believe it! I didn't say I played them WELL - that's still the major challenge.