Completed Five-String Fiddle

Commissioned Five-string fiddle complete.

Five String Fiddle is headed for the Bluegrass Festival!

The customer gave her enthusiastic blessing to my taking her precious new fiddle to the Wintergrass festival; hopefully to be played by some real professionals. Last night I completed most of the set-up, and I had it playing this morning.

So, here is most of the set-up process:

Re-install the fingerboard.
Carve and install the nut (final shaping later.)
Ream peg-holes
Carve and install the saddle.
Install the end button.
Install the soundpost
Install the pegs.
Cut the bridge to proper fit, shape, and height.
Install tailpiece and strings.
Play it for final adjustment of soundpost, bridge, nut height, etc.

As you may recall, the customer chose Ipe wood for fingerboard, nut, and saddle. It is an extremely hard and dense wood, but not a threatened species, so it is still easy to obtain. In fact, the board I purchased was being sold for decking. I actually have some Apitong wood, too, salvaged from a railroad boxcar floor. Also very dense and hard, but not as pretty as Ipe.

The color of the Ipe wood looks good with the Oregon Big Leaf Maple and the Sitka spruce under their varnish. The only finish on the Ipe is a very light rub of linseed oil.

Shaping the nut of the Five-String Fiddle — Shaping the nut of Ipe wood, to match the fingerboard.

Ipe nut and fingerboard of the Five-String Fiddle — Nut and fingerboard installed and cut to preliminary shape.

Peg holes and nut grooves of the Five-String Fiddle — Peg holes reamed and nut grooves located, but not finished.

Pegs installed on the Five-String Fiddle — Pegs shaped, cut and installed.

Ipe saddle installed on the Five-String Fiddle — Saddle, of Ipe wood, installed with radiused corners to prevent cracks.

Bottom view of the Ipe wood saddle on the Five-String Fiddle — Bottom view of the Ipe wood saddle.

Completed end button with tailpiece of the Five-String Fiddle. — Completed end button with tailpiece.

Finished front view of the Commissioned Five-String Fiddle. — Finished instrument front view. End button and pegs are ebony: I can’t obtain Ipe pegs and fittings.

Bass side viw of the finished Five-String Fiddle — Finished bass side view.

Treble side view of the finished Five-String Fiddle. — Finished treble side view.

Finished back view of the Five-String Fiddle. — Finished back view.

Bass side scroll of the Five-String Fiddle. — Bass side scroll.

Treble side scroll of the Five-String Fiddle. — Treble side scroll.

“Playing it in.”

So, at this point, the main thing is to play the instrument as much as possible, so that it settles into its new life as a fiddle, instead of a bunch of pieces of wood! This period is called “play-in”, and there is much controversy as to what is really happening. But my observation is that there are definite positive changes that come about through vigorous playing of a new (or newly restored) instrument. I’m not going to try to “prove it:” it is just my observation and one I feel comfortable acting upon.

Five-String Fiddle Ready to play! — Ready to play!

How does she sound?

So far, so good! Very good, deep C-string tone, and well-balanced across all the strings. I would like a little more volume, and I may do some tinkering with the soundpost to that end, but I have to say, “Not bad for a brand-new fiddle!”

I think it is a winner! (Very pretty, too, but I didn’t do that…the tree did.)

Thanks for looking.

January 3, 2020June 2, 2020

Commissioned Handmade Five-string Fiddle Beginning

Starting a new 5-String Fiddle

The Materials:

A few weeks ago I announced that a new fiddle would be beginning. Now I have a few photos to show:

The top plate is Sitka Spruce, from Bruce Harvie. The customer wanted “Oregon wood,” and the Big Leaf Maple is definitely from in my neighborhood, here in Oregon (I helped harvest it;) but the Sitka is just a species that grows here…I don’t know where it was harvested.

Wild-grain Big Leaf Maple for Five-string fiddle back and ribs! — Wild-grain Maple for back and ribs!

Fine-grained Sitka Spruce for Five-string fiddle top plate. — Fine-grained Sitka Spruce for the top plate.

Preview of the grain in the Five-string fiddle neck billet. — Preview of the grain in the neck billet.

Beginning the work of building a 5-string fiddle:

I book-matched the spruce, to form the basis for the front plate: a solid plate with a tight glue-line down the center.

I used the mold (or form, as many people prefer to call it) that matched the fiddle the customer liked best. Then I added willow blocks to become the corners and end-blocks, and I traced the intended shape of the blocks from the mold template onto the back-side of the blocks, where they are flush with the mold.

Blocks and mold with Five-string fiddle template. — Blocks and mold with template.

Five-string fiddle Preliminary block-shaping complete. — Preliminary block-shaping complete.

Added the ribs, of the spalted maple the customer liked, and glued them to the willow blocks. Afterward, I added linings, also of willow, and let them into the blocks and glued them to the ribs and the blocks.

Spalted Maple ribs and willow linings on beginning of Five-string fiddle. — Spalted Maple ribs and willow linings.

Five-string fiddle Rib garland nearly complete. — Rib garland nearly complete.

Then I traced the shape of the garland onto the top plate material, using a small washer as a spacer, and a ball-point pen as a scribe. I completed the corners using a straightedge and a series of circle templates. Finally, I marked the edge at exactly 4 mm thick, and carved the arching, using gouges and planes and scrapers.

Sitka top-plate arching complete for Five-string fiddle. — Sitka top-plate arching complete.

Then I marked the layout of the double purfling and the f-holes, and began incising them into the Sitka Spruce.

F-holes and purfling traced and cutting begun for Five-string fiddle. — F-holes and purfling traced and cutting begun.

Sometime in the midst of all the above work, I laid out and began carving the scroll and pegbox. That wild grain is very tricky to carve, as it changes direction constantly.

Rough-carved scroll and pegbox of Five-string fiddle. — Rough-carved scroll and pegbox.

I went ahead and completed the purfling and the f-holes, so that I could prepare the plate to be glued to the garland.

Completed top plate and neck work with garland for Five-string fiddle. — Completed top plate and neck work with garland.

I also added the bass-bar, chalk-fitting it to perfection, and gluing it in place, with hot hide glue. The bass-bar will be carved, planed and scraped to the proper shape after the glue dries.

Five-string fiddle Bass-bar glued and clamped. — Bass-bar glued and clamped.

Five-string fiddle Top plate glued and clamped to the garland, fingerboard glued to the neck. — Top plate glued and clamped to the garland, fingerboard glued to the neck.

The fingerboard is Ipé, as requested by the customer. It is an extremely dense hardwood, but not threatened as Ebony is beginning to be. It finishes to a dark brown and looks good, as well as wearing well. It is extremely difficult to work, though, so it may take time to become popular with makers. The saddle and the nut will also be Ipé, but the pegs will be ebony, simply because I have never mastered the lathe-turning of tuning pegs.

Working on the fingerboard for the Five-string fiddle. — Working on the fingerboard.

And that is pretty much where things stand, for now. I will try to post pictures as they become available.

Thanks for looking.

April 26, 2019June 2, 2020

Five String Instruments

Five-String Fiddles

I get a fair amount of demand for five-string fiddles; in my case, that means a five-string instrument with the same footprint and scale-length as a violin, but with the added C-string, so that it carries the full range of both a violin and a viola. I have mastered this genre to the point that the low end of my five-string fiddles sound like a good, small viola, and the high end sounds like a good violin…and the neck width is just barely wider than that of a violin (25 mm) so that it plays like a violin.

Teachers like them, because they can teach the viola part or the violin part, without having to change instruments.

Wood Selection

One of the beauties of a five-string fiddle is that, because it is non-traditional, I am not under the burden of using traditional woods, so I am free to experiment, and, as it turns out, there are other woods that work quite well: I have made them of domestic woods; Big Leaf Maple/Sitka Spruce (or Englemann Spruce), but I have also used Koa/Sitka Spruce, Myrtle/Port Orford Cedar, and all these combinations worked quite well. I will soon try a five-string fiddle of Bubinga and Sitka Spruce and am open to other experiments.

I will continue to build and sell five-string fiddles either on speculation or on commission, as the demand increases.

Five-String Violas

I am beginning to hear a call for Five-String Violas as well. These have the same range of pitch as a five-string fiddle, but the physical instruments are whatever size viola is preferred by the customer. Though I have already built several sizes, until I get an increased demand, these will likely remain as custom commissions, not just built on speculation, such as how I currently produce the five-string fiddles.

The practical difference, then, between a five-string fiddle and a five-string viola, is that the (usually larger) five-string viola will usually have deeper, richer, louder tone, just because it has a larger resonating body, both of air and wood. But not everyone can comfortably play a larger instrument, so this is a matter of personal choice.

Five-String Cellos

Five-string cellos are not a new thing. The cello-piccolo and the cello da spalla have been extant for centuries, and music has been specially written for both. I hope to see a rising demand for these instruments, but, for the moment, they are a rarity. I can build both, and hope to soon have some to display here, but, for the moment, I do not. I have had customers ask about them, but usually, it was just an idea they had, and they were not prepared to place an order.

Five-String Double Basses

Five-string double basses are increasingly common, as people want the freedom to reach for lower bass notes, and not have to have a “B-Extension” added to their bass (which can also be done, of course, but it does add length to the bass scroll, and an additional source of fragility.)

I build an occasional double bass, but they are a lot of work, and they completely monopolize my small workspace when they are a work in progress; so I am more likely to default to smaller instruments. There is a special thrill, however, in building a huge instrument, seeing the beauty of the beast, and feeling the floor shake when I draw out long bass notes with the bow. I can certainly understand why players fall in love with the double bass, and especially the five-string double bass, with the lowest-of-the-low B-string at their beck and call.