Adventures in Purfling

I know I've had a lot of fiddle-heavy posts lately, but you'll just have to bear with me.

If you remember a couple posts back talking about my fiddle I mentioned how it was completed, except for purfling. In review - purfling is the line that goes around the edge of a stringed instrument - made of three small strips of wood sandwiched together, which in turn make one strip that is colored black/white/black. In order to install this strip, it's required to dig a tiny "ditch" into the surface of the fiddle, between about 1/8" and 1/16th" inch deep, poke in the purfling with glue, trim the overhang so the purfling is flush with the fiddle surface, sand, and then apply final finishing.

Not all fiddles have purfling. Some, especially old hand-made ones, don't have any lines along the edges. Most fiddles at least have a drawn-on or painted line - Violet's earliest fiddles as well as the ones here Dad made have lines drawn with pencil. I think she told me she didn't do inlay purfling until fiddle #7 or #8.

I didn't add purfling to my fiddle earlier because I was in a hurry to get my fiddle playable for Folk Alliance. I wanted to add it for two reasons - #1) because it looked unfinished without a line, and #2) I wanted to be a fancypants.

The timing was perfect to start last week. After returning from Memphis, as I was showing it off to my friend Judith, she noticed an area where the top had come loose from the sides. Apparently when gluing on the top, I didn't get enough on that area. I had heard during the Folk Alliance during a lobby jam session the last night we were there a small *pop*, but during my quick inspection I didn't notice the break. (In a related note, apparently the break at some point after my initial inspection was big enough to let my rattlesnake rattle escape. As much as I hate to have lost it, since it belonged to the timber rattler I kept while working in state parks for programs (he/she lost it after shedding - I didn't chop it off), I'd give about anything to see the Mariott worker's face who found it.)

Since some of the glue between the top and sides was already loose, I decided to go ahead and take the top off to make installing the purfling easier. I had to tell myself that sometimes it takes a few steps back to go forward, along with a *BIG SIGH*...

Once I had the fiddle disassembled, it was time to practice on some wood scraps with Violet's purfling knife. I assumed the purfling knife would make this job cake. I was wrong. Now I know why most "how to install violin purfling" sites and videos on the internet show the installer using a dremel tool with an edging guide. The whole idea of installing purfling is scary. After a good two hours of practice with the special knife, I came to the conclusion that a regular finely-sharpened pocket knife was going to work just as well or better. It still took me an hour of false starts on the actual fiddle top - the evil-looking knife hovering millimeters above that perfectly finished surface - before I summoned the guts to plunge the knife into the wood. Did I mention it was scary?

Thirty minutes into the cutting, I was dismayed at the results. It appeared that a drunk termite had haphazardly eaten it's way around the edge of my formerly beautiful fiddle top. Choking back frustrated tears, I soldiered on, hoping for the best, uttering "Oops" and "Crap" and other colorful oaths as the knife slipped and skidded hither and yon. I decided the word "purfling" should be an explicative, and from then on I'd use it as such. A few more knife slips (one solidly into my finger), and a few more yells of "PURFLE!!!" made Violet crack up, while Joe smugly stated, "That's why I'm not doing purfling - I'm going to woodburn my line in." This earned him a major stink-eye, and gave me some resolve to prove him wrong.

I kept hacking away (sending Joe several eye-daggers for good measure), and when I got home hacked some more until I could fit a piece of purfling in one of the grooves, then went to bed. Then ten minutes later I got out of bed, because I just couldn't sleep knowing I might've royally screwed up my fiddle top. After much struggle getting the purfling in the ditch, I glued it in and tried to read a book while the glue set, then trimmed and sanded the purfling flush with the top.

Holy cow! I didn't screw up! What looked pretty ragged and crude when I left Violet's house actually turned out much nicer than I thought it ever could. The ragged edges were fixed when I sanded, and any big gaps were filled with the glue that had seeped up and mixed with the sawdust from the sanding, rendering them invisible. *BIG WHEW!* I could finally go to sleep knowing I didn't mess up, though if I do more purfling in the future, I do believe I'll go with the dremel tool.

Even after the ditches were dug, getting the purfling in the ditches was a challenge all it's own. Some pieces went in easy as pie - like that first piece. Some pieces did not. One piece shot across the room and I spent an hour looking for it until I found it under the refrigerator. The only way I found it was by noticing Puck staring under the fridge. My only guess is that it ricocheted off the couch? Who knows. Another piece fell from my grasp while I was working out on the porch (my skin sucking up some sunshine on a rare nice day), bounced off my glass of water, and fell down a crack. Once again I found myself thankful for no visible neighbors as I sucked in my breath in order to squirm under the porch, through the mud, and over sharp rocks to retrieve the piece, then squirm back out again - backwards - muddy with skinned elbows. I thought briefly of letting that piece go, but it was my last bit and I wasn't going to delay the fiddle another week due to minor technical difficulties.

Violet has already determined that I'm to start on fiddle #2 as soon as #1 is completely completed. I guess since I already have the wood, not to mention the free direction of a famous fiddle-maker who thinks I have talent, I should grab the opportunity and run with it. I think #2 will go much faster, now that I sort-of know what I'm doing, despite the probable fact that any "real" by-the-book violin-makers reading my updates are likely screaming "THAT'S NOT HOW YOU DO THAT!!!" Heh. I guess it's my (as hubby says) "stubborn streak as wide as the Mississippi" in action.

It's also learning from a living piece of our past (Violet, of course), who remembers vividly the days before cars were mainstream, before phones, before internet, before you could go to the mall and get a pair of shoes, and countless other things we take for granted. But especially, before you could flip on the radio and choose from any number of different genres of music. Before you could go to a music store and buy a handsome factory-made fiddle. She comes from a time when square-dances were the height in entertainment, and old-time music wasn't "old-time", but the current "Top 40." When your musical instrument was often hand-made, and maybe didn't sound technically "right", but sounds so good when playing that kind of music. - the way a hand-made instrument and old-time tunes should sound.

Well, stay tuned for a pic of the FINISHED no foolin' completely done fiddle. No joke.