Violin, personal "Del Gesù" (a new attempt at this model)

I made another violin on my "personal Guarnerius" pattern.
This mould gives a 353-354 mm length of back, measuring along the arching (flexible tape).

This latest instrument has an oil varnish finish with no antiquing, over a "mineral ground" coat, obtained by mixing some finely crushed volcanic matter (pumice, pozzolana) into a basic oil varnish.

The pictures were taken before doing the final smoothing and polishing; I did this with tripoli and oil on a cotton rag, then with some diluted "Super Nikco" commercial polish  (I find that Super Nikco is too aggressive, even for a new instrument, but it is very efficient in leaving an oil-free surface).

The scroll pattern is derived from an instrument by Del Gesù that was in Ruggiero Ricci's collection. I remember that it was an instrument from the maker's early period, and it does not have the characteristic bulbous shape. The inner turns of the scroll follow the Rocca model, a rationalised and recognizable interpretation from one of the most important Italian makers and copyists, that I am trying to grasp and internalize.

Here are some details of the unpolished varnish coat and corners, etc...

I will return to the Rocca 1854 pattern for my next instrument, and I will see if I can incorporate my new findings into a better rendition of this beautiful model.

Spiral bushings

I installed spiral bushings on an old Sicilian violin. The D peg has also been regularly bushed and reopened beforehand, in order to drill the new hole in line with the other three.

I made a special gouge to ease the trimming of the bushings, by cutting and grinding an edge to an old file. The back of this gouge has a slightly curved surface, much like a so-called "in-cannel" gouge.

 I did a very light reaming of each hole before glueing two maple shavings on each hole. After the needed thickness was reached, I glue-sized and scraped the shavings flush with the pegbox walls. Then I did the varnish retouching and a very light French polishing. The retouch adds a slight halo around the peg holes, which simulates the dirt accumulation and helps to hide the repair. In the pictures (taken with my phone) the varnish retouch looks more opaque than it really is.
Finally, the old pegs have been thinned down on the peg shaper and reinstalled.

Violin after a Joseph Rocca "Guarnerius" pattern

This is a violin I finished in October 2018.

It is made after a Joseph Rocca "Guarneri" violin made in 1854, and here's a little bit of explanation about why I chose this specific model.

The first time I used the "Alard" Rocca pattern, I was working under the guidance of master violinmaker and expert Eric Blot, in Cremona. As a freshly graduated student from the Cremona school, I had the opportunity to make a violin for Eric's workshop, since Eric was launching a "mid-price" line for his customers at that time.
Contrary to what was the common practice in town, not only was I allowed to copy his patterns and plaster casts from an original Joseph Rocca violin, but I also received help by Eric's assistant, Jan Bartos, and by Eric himself, in all the most important steps of the making. I remember Eric being very busy with the writing of his book about Piedmontese makers at that time.

After the violin was finished in white, it was Jan who varnished and set it up, because I wasn't ready to do that with the quality that Eric wanted... this doesn't mean that Eric and Jan wanted to keep it all secret, we talked about oil varnishes, lakes and rosinates quite a bit and all this information turned out to be very useful in the following years.

Eric's choice to put the apprentice's name on his workshop labels was not very common in Cremona, and it is one I appreciated very much.
More recently, I had the chance to trace the present owner of the violin via a casual encounter. I don't have any good pictures of it, unfortunately.

the violin was made after the patterns I received from Eric Blot, I just made the corners slightly longer than the original. The strong, individualistic character of  J. Rocca's scrolls has always been the most difficult part to copy for me, but I tried to reproduce all the aspects that I could remember. I have used my own oil-based varnish for this one -- a yellow ground coat made by adding aloe resin to a basic colophony/mastic varnish, and four more coats of a similar orange-amber colored varnish, containing amber (indeed) and a bit of red madder lake.

Dear Eric, if you ever read this, let me say "thank you" for all you have taught me in your workshop!  I hope that I'll be able to come by soon with another instrument, and show it to you.

Violin, personal pattern after Guarneri del Gesù

This is a violin I made on a personal pattern in the style of Guarneri del Gesù.
The body length is 352 mm. Stop is set at standard 195 mm.
The varnish is an antiqued spirit lacquer.