Chapel Violins Magazine

Welcome to Chapel Violins official news site. This site is provided for prospective students and graduates of Chapel Violins School of Violin Making. Chapel Violins offer courses in violin making for all standard of students, from complete beginners to advanced makers. Whether you want to study a short course or part-time course, or make a longer committment to study Chapel Violins have something to suit.

• Short and Parttime Courses
• Certificate in Violin Making
• Advanced Restoration

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The Diary articles are written by a Chapel Violins apprentice, who is currently studying the craft.

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On Tuesday we visited Elston Sawmill, a local rural wood yard operated by Steve Wright. This chap has a lot of wood! Some very nice timber, walnut, spalted beech, poplar, and nice sycamore pieces some with good age, and well priced. Looking through his stock makes you want to build something! He also has wood turning blanks, carving blocks and of course instrument wood, all good quality. Whether or not you’re interested in machinary, you can’t fail to be impressed with Steve’s bandsaw. Steve offered a cutting service for a very reasonable fee which saved a lot of sawing for our resident cello builder. We all came away with something nice from that visit, some beautiful wood that will make a fine instrument in a few years. We’ll likely be going again with more cash!

What a great visit!

Only a few places left for the masterclasses starting in September 2011, if you are applying to join Chapel Violins this year you are advised to get your application in early to avoid disappointment.

Stepan Soultanian visited Chapel Violins on Monday, bringing with him an beautiful example of his work. Stepan is a master antiquer, and is very skilled at creating new instruments that look centuries old and this was no exception. Displaying a deep yellow-red varnish with wear and tear marks seen on old instruments, Stepan took us through the fine points explaining why the wear marks form, and how he reproduced them on a new instrument. It was good to have some of the details of setup explained, particularly short tailpeices and tips on bridges. We are very grateful he dropped in to say hello, what a great afternoon!

Pictures to follow, meanwhile you can check out Stepan’s work at his website http://www.stepansoultanian.com/Index.html

Just finished upgrading the site to Buddy Press, seeing if the post works!

Thought I’d take a look in the Chapel today to see what was going on, I had some work to do on the Viola, so I brought that with me. John who is studying a full 6 month course at Chapel, was at his bench. The 6 month violin making course teaches the construction of the violin from creation of the template and mould, through to final setup.

john doing slots for blocks

Today John was putting the finishing touches to the mould and getting started on the blocks, One of the things you learn when doing these is the importance of being accurate and square. John has made a very nice mould, very carefully executed and precise. I predict a nice violin emerging over the duration of the course.

Mould making

Elsewhere in the shop, Andy was fitting cello pegs, using time honored graphite and files to work on the pegs rather than the holes. Laurens was doing a bit of reaming of cello peg holes on another instrument, and John was doing some re-touch work. There was a brief demonstration of colouring a cello neck, from plain maple to a beautiful golden colour in a few shakes of the secret ingredients and a bit of rag work.

Tomorrow fibre internet gets connected in the workshop, which will be a very helpful addition!

Cello neck work

Brought my cello in today to get the once over, all I knew about it is that it’s a German cello. I know this because there is a gold sticker on the bottom saying “Made in Germany”.. yes its a cheap student cello. Its got a ply front and a maple ply back, and maple ribs, oh well I only bought it to practice on, it will never win any awards, but with a bit of set up work the tone and playability will dramatically improve. So the first task are the pegs, I had already managed to snap my A string.. The strings and bridge must be removed first for ease of working, the position of the bridge being marked for refitting purposes. The pegs were at least ebony, not bad for german trade, but were sticky in all the wrong places, and frequently came loose meaning the cello would just go out of tune on a sneeze. Each peg is removed and made to fit the hole by the use of a small file, some graphite and a bit of sandpaper, it can be a lengthy process for a beginner like me, the peg has to fit both holes for it to grip properly. It became apparent that I had oval pegs, that were not tapered enough to fit the pegbox properly.. at last something to blame my playing on.

After filing and marking and a lot of peg twisting in the peg box, I had fitted my 4 pegs, now they turn and hold their positions nicely without that jerky motion – a result. My next setup task will be to have a look at the nut I think.. it could be responsible for my string snapping problem.

Congratulations to Gail on completion of the 2 week scroll carving course at the Chapel! Coming from only a little woodworking experience, Gail produced a very fine Strad scroll in maple, and we hope learned some of the fine intricacies of scroll carving that you just can’t experience in books. Hopefully we can persuade her to share some pictures!

gail's scroll

During her stay Gail was able to visit the Violin Makers Association event in London, as well as Hemswell antiques center which we can recommend to tool junkies!

In stringed instruments with age its not uncommon for them to develop notes that buzz or make unexpected noises. Part of the skill of the restorer is to identify the source of those and eliminate them. Today was one of those buzzy days, we had a fantastic cello that had just been restored, and had gone through the usual checks, and was sounding and looking the business! A classic late 19th century model, with a warm and vibrate tone, and as it turns out a little buzz. A customer came in to try the cello and after playing a selection of pieces we came to realise that there was one note, that produced a faint buzz. After the customer had left, perplexed the boss set to work to locate the source of the problem. I was drafted as a cello “player” and soon it became apparent that with my limited skill I too could produce a buzz with the correct fingering. I could also produce all manner of tortured noises…. but when I managed to sound a note properly, there was the buzz, and only on the one note. The problem was quickly resolved using the hidden secrets of diagnostic lutherie.. it was found that the fingerboard was the source of the buzz, and needed to be fitted a little better at the nut, and now the cello has no buzz, and is ready for buzzless performance.

Toxic Ebony
First foray into ebony, the mildly toxic wood, even more mildly toxic than the solvent stuff that Anita brought in today, that was some pow’ful moonshine, I hope she didnt notice..
So I fitted a nut today on a nice old violin, and a tail nut.. which I was corrected in my terminology – was actually a saddle. As violin making goes, relatively straight forward but dont inhale, smoke or eat ebony dust… The boss says this violin will be my project, so lets see what we can make of this fine old italian copy that has seen some times. Looks like it will need some crack touch up, I will be borrowing Anita’s solvent for more nasal abuse some time soon..

While all this was going on Frank was quietly fitting a very nice neck to a cello he had been working on, there seems to be quite a few cellos coming and going at the Chapel and they are all very characterful. I promise myself to sit down and learn a few more things on mine.. perhaps it would help if I set it up properly and replaced the string that nearly took my nose off when it self-destructed in my tuning attempt… I think it will be a while before John lets me do any work on cellos..

Congratulations to Caroline on her graduation after making two beautiful violins. Caroline was a student studying a 6 month course on violin construction.

Caroline at the chapel cutting out her back.

Graduation was held at the Chapel on 23rd February, the two violins were played in a duet and we were all amazed at the power and presence of the instruments!

During her course Caroline was able to try out some varnishing techniques and had good results with a whiskey and tobacco mix. Caroline informs me this isnt actually a varnish, and is a stain or ground. Suprisingly nice colour and great smell to go with it to boot. Caroline has been playing in her two creations and has started the third. As new violins are played their response and tone can improve as the wood responds to the different frequencies.

Busy caroline!