Books › Violin making, 1902 › scan 58
Scan 58
Violin making, 1902
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 30. See the scan on archive.org.
1The outlined back, being quite ready for marking, I clamp down to the bench with two of those marked 11, one at either end, leaving one side of the outlet free. Then I take this specially made purfling tool, No. 13, with its tracers fixed for marking the two parallel lines about five-thirty-second of an inch from the perfect outline of the back, and I grasp the handle in both hands perpendicularly, pressing the revolving wheel against the edge, of course, and keeping the steel markers going carefully and with only slight pressure all round the instrument, stopping without running off at the corners, however. There is, you see, about two inches not marked where the button comes; this must be traced by placing a piece of prepared hard wood, made to touch just the same curve as where the lines would have come had there been no wood there for a button. This must be very carefully placed and traced, as, otherwise, all will not be in correct sweep.
3Now, gentlemen, we enter on a difficult stage—nay, two; but then, as I was once asked by a gentleman, "Which part of a violin is the most difficult to make?" I replied, "Every part." But not quite that; still, what I am now going to do is not by any means the least. But you must not lose heart; he who never fights, never conquers; the man who never blundered or made a mistake, never made anything.
5Fasten the plate again on the inner part, not the edge, of the bench, so that you can lean over to do what you see I am about to do, and remove cramps as occasion requires. This is a one and one-eight inch pointed
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