DIY Network

Handmade Violin, Part 5: Forming the Plates From "Handmade Music" episode DHMM-202

This second episode of DIY's five-part series on violin-making focuses on the violin's plates -- i.e., the top and back. After a quick review on the violin's rib structure, host Jeff Wilson and the staff at the Chicago School of Violin Making begin creating the plates for the violin body.

The top plate is made from spruce that's specially selected for its tonal qualities. The back is made from flame-maple. Expert violin-maker Becky Elliott joins book-matched pairs of stock using the "non-clamp" method used by violinmakers for centuries. This episode is dedicated to following each step as the stock evolves from raw blanks to precisely crafted violin plates. The students are treated to an exhibit of rare and expensive (twenty-million dollar) Stradivarius violins. Duly inspired, the students and directors return to their projects and complete both plates.

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	Fred Thompson, co-director of the Chicago School of Violin Making.
	Co-director and expert violin-maker Becky Elliott.

Violin-builders share a passion for the craftsmanship that's been passed from master to apprentice through 500 years of history. DIY's Handmade Music witnesses the modern manifestation of that long tradition as host Jeff Wilson and viewers visit the Chicago School of Violin making to discover how students learn to build violins, cellos and violas. The school's directors Becky Elliott and Fred Thompson tell us that students share a common motivation that goes beyond woodworking.

"Maybe there's a universal desire," says Thompson, "to create something that makes beautiful music and will last a long time. I think that's what most people are thinking about when they come here."

"I think it's when you finish an instrument, and especially when you hear somebody else play it," adds Becky Elliott, "and you realize all the time you spent on something useful, not just a visual object . . . there's no other reward like that."

In Handmade Music's five-part series on the violin, we've broken up the construction of the violin into four main stages. In the first episode, we built the ribs -- or sides -- of the violin. In this episode, we create the plates -- or the top and back. Later we'll carve a neck and put it all together. In the final episode, we show how a violin bow is created.

Creating the plates begins with raw stock -- maple for the back and spruce for the top. According to Fred, the process starts with pieces of wood that are about 3/4" thick. The 3/4" edges are joined together, but once carving is done, the thickest portion of the violin's top is 1/8" thick. The way they do it here is with a non-clamp joint. The key is a perfectly planed joint that creates an air chamber between a book-matched pair of pieces of wood stock.

"You push the slightly hollow pieces together, with glue between them, and rub them," explains Thompson, "to create a vacuum in that hollow space that actually pulls the pieces together as the glue squeezes out."

Hot hide-glue bonds the two halves together for both the maple back and spruce front. Joining a quarter-sawn book matched pair creates a triangular blank (figure A).

The peak will face out and the flat side is the inside of the violin. Both plates are flattened by hand-planing further before moving on (figures B and C).

Figure B

Figure C

Becky uses the ribs she finished earlier to mark an outline of the violin's shape onto both the maple and the spruce (figures D and E).

Figure D

Figure E

She cuts the rough shapes with a bow-saw (figure F). The school has power tools, but working by hand gives students a deeper appreciation for how the masters created their instruments.

Rough arching is the next step. It's the first of many efforts at thinning the plates. In this initial phase it's done using a gouge (figure G). Long cuts are made to quickly eliminate unnecessary stock, and working across the grain prevents chipping. Later, carving and scraping will thin the plates even more.

Figure F

Figure G

	After the two book-matched pieces of wood have been glued together, the rough cut-out for the plate is made by hand using a bow-saw.
	The neck the violin will be added after creating the sides and the top and back plate.

In the segment that follows, the shaping of the rough-cut plates continues.

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