Lecture 1, Instrument Making School, Violin-World, The Stringed Instrument Resource for Violin, Cello, Viola, Double Bass

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Instrument Making School - Lecture 1

Welcome to Violin-World virtual instrument making class. Introducing John Ferwerda, senior violinmaker of Violin-World who will be lecturing you in the art of violinmaking. Please register free as you will get preference with enquiries.

There aren't any prerequisites for this school, even though some knowledge of basic woodworking will help.

Remember that you can come in to our Violin Making Class on Thursday evenings (6.30 p.m. - 9.30 p.m.), this costs $30.00 and gives you access to tools and professional help from John Ferwerda himself. Harpsichord making class is on Tuesday evenings. If you come to the Thursday class you are not restricted to making a violin, our instrument makers can help you construct any stringed instrument that you like from a cello to an acoustic and electric guitar.

E-mail violinmaker@violin-world.com for more information on this section and the violin and harpsichord making classes.

Mr. John Ferwerda:

As a preamble, I would like to state that I will be staying very traditional with the method of making i.e. maintaining stringent guidelines in terms of measurements, modeling and method of making.

The very nature of the Internet medium is such that it is difficult to instruct step by step accurately, so we will try to show as many pictures and photos as possible. As such please don't hesitate to e-mail Mario on violinmaker@violin-world.com and register free.

I am making a violin and will be staying a step ahead of everyone and you will basically be making it behind me.

The first consideration when building a violin is wood and the type of wood to use. Because of my traditional approach, I will be using traditional woods (something that has been done for 400 years).

Our choices are: maple and spruce i.e. back and ribs in maple and scroll and neck in maple, the top plate in spruce. We will be using spruce for the internal blocks and linings. This wood has been proven to be optimal for many years.

As in a normal violin school, before you start, you need to obtain some wood to construct the instrument (sparing the need for specialized tools). Please find below the violinmaking kit that we recommend you buy. We would appreciate it if you buy the violinmaking kit from us (prices are very low and we make minimal profit from it). The kit is put together by us and includes all the wood you will need to build the final product, at the end you will have a hand made violin as opposed to pre-fabricated kits.

The kit contains the wood material for the violin. Write to us if you want to purchase bits and pieces of the kit.

Violin Making Wood (Prices are in Australian Dollars, you can convert your total to $US in our secure area)

Violinmaking kit (premium wood and accessories), including back and matching ribs, spruce top, neck block, bass bar, block wood, lining wood, soundpost, purfling, fingerboard and nut, pegs, bridge, end button, chinrest, Otto Strings, tailpiece, glue, varnish with instructions, template for f-hole and scroll included to correct dimensions, shipping free within Australia-Violin C561N	$665.00	Not available at the moment

Wood below available to buy separately, for people who want to choose their wood. If you purchase the violinmaking kit, don't buy the wood below, it is all included in your kit.

Back, Back (made of maple with sides)-Violin C562N [1/1 plain ($25)], [2/1slightly flamed ($39)], [3/1 Better flamed ($55)], [5/1 well flamed, medium quality ($75)],[7/1 beautyfully and deeply flamed ($90)], [9/1 very beautyful flaming ($190)], [10/1 choice tone wood ($290)]	$25.00	Quantity


Tops, (European spruce)-Violin C569N [11/1 simple quality ($22.50)], [13/1 better quality ($25)], [15/1 fine-grained good quality ($35)], [16/1 choice resonant wood ($50)], [17/1 choice resonant wood best quality ($85)], [18/1 split simple ($20)], [18/1b split better quality ($35)], [19/1 split fine-grained ($75)], [20/1 split ($110)]	$22.50	Quantity


Neck blocks, plain (made of maple)-Violin C578N [21/1 plain ($20)], [22/1 slightly flamed ($25)], [25/1 well flamed ($35)], [27/1 beautyfully flamed ($55)], [29/1 best quality ($90)]	$20.00	Quantity


Lining Wood, 56/1, (40 x 5 x 0.4 cm, lime wood or spruce)-Violin C583N	$9.00	Quantity

Press "Add to Cart" to add all items with Quantities greater than zero to your shopping cart, you will then be shown your current shopping cart contents.

Press "Reset" above to reset the Quantities to zero or input "0" in the Quantity box next to unwanted items, if you don't want particular items to be added to your total order.

E-mail violinmaker@violin-world.com for more information on this section.

Lectures: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Next |

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