*Finished* Solid electric violin build

DartmoorHedgehog

I decided I'd post this here even though it's not a guitar.  I've asked various questions on here during the planning stages, and I'm not a member of a string instrument forum, so it seems appropriate.  If people think it's OT I'll move it to Other Instruments, but I hope people find it interesting...

My daughter plays the violin and asked me to build her an electric 5-string in the style of Ed Alleyne-Johnson's.  After building my 5-string guitar last year I reckoned I was up to the challenge.  The last few months has been researching, drawing, measuring and sourcing electronics, but now it's finally under construction.  

It's going to be maple through-neck for strength with the rest of the body made from pine.  Fingerboard and tailpiece are ebony and the pickup will be a piezo under-bridge with preamp.  Ed Alleyne-Johnson's violin uses some sort of fancy bridge with individual string saddles, but I'm going to use a normal violin bridge and single piezo.

So far I've shaped the fingerboard (I bought a viola board to get the width I needed for the 5-string, so it needed a fair bit of work with scrapers to get it to the required width, thickness and radius), cut the rough neck shape from maple and shaped the headstock.  All going quite successfully so far...

Andyjr1515

Excellent  I think it's firmly Making and Modding.  

But don't care as long as I can find it to watch the progress

BigMonka

Great stuff, this is definitely going to be a thread to watch!

sawyer

Watching with interest!

Sporky

This is aligned with my current interests.

DartmoorHedgehog

Thanks for the positivity people
I'll leave the thread here then.

@sporky Nothing like as ambitious as your cello - no hollow acoustic body here!

It's nice that it's so small - only 6" of neck back to shape instead of 2 feet on a guitar.  And no frets

paulnb57

Interesting project...subscribed...

DartmoorHedgehog

Bit more progress today.  Managed to get the back of the neck filed and scraped pretty much to the shape I want it and got the body side wings glued on.

lysander

Excellent ! Are you not worried about that pine / spruce getting dinged very easily ?
On the other hand it must be very light that way. 

Sporky

DartmoorHedgehog said:

@sporky Nothing like as ambitious as your cello - no hollow acoustic body here!

Yeah, but you've actually built some of yours. I'm still drawing.

DartmoorHedgehog

lysander said:

Excellent ! Are you not worried about that pine / spruce getting dinged very easily ?
On the other hand it must be very light that way. 

I think it'll be fine.  I built a guitar last year with similar construction and it's not overly soft once it's got a couple of coats of varnish on it.  The hardwood spine gives it strength so the softwood part is mostly cosmetic anyway.

DartmoorHedgehog

After a couple of hours and a fair few fretsaw blades I now have the rough body shape cut out (and an aching arm).  Hopefully it'll stop raining tomorrow so I can attack it with files outside.

DartmoorHedgehog

OK, it did stop raining for the weekend so apart from a gig yesterday evening I've had loads of time to work on this

It's going pretty well I reckon, most of the woodwork is almost finished.  Mr Alleyne-Johnson cut an oval hole in the middle of his (presumably to take some weight out because his is all hardwood) but my daughter reckons it looks better without the hole and it's not overly heavy, so that's one job I don't have to do.

Here's some progress pics from the weekend:

Flink_Poyd

Great work. It's threads like this that makes me wish my dad still had all his woodworking kit. 

BigMonka

That's looking really good, top job Mr Hedgehog!

DartmoorHedgehog

Thanks folks - I must say I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far.

Andyjr1515

Looking good.  I'm really interested in the weight / balance / playability issue - it was definitely an issue with my attempt a few years ago even though it's actually fully hollowed out underneath:



 Trouble is, I didn't have any proper violin players I knew that could give a view. It's great that you have a violinist that can check it out for you!

DartmoorHedgehog

Thanks @Andyjr1515 - it's certainly heavier than an acoustic violin, but not terrible with the wings of the body made from softwood.  Alice has held it as it is now and reckons it feels good, so I'm quietly confident it'll work.  Ed Alleyne-Johnson's violin is apparently extremely heavy and he seems to do OK with it
Still time for it all to go horribly wrong though...

Andyjr1515

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Thanks @Andyjr1515 - it's certainly heavier than an acoustic violin, but not terrible with the wings of the body made from softwood.  Alice has held it as it is now and reckons it feels good, so I'm quietly confident it'll work.  Ed Alleyne-Johnson's violin is apparently extremely heavy and he seems to do OK with it
Still time for it all to go horribly wrong though...

Sounds good    I think with mine it might be as much the weight distribution as the weight itself.  You live and learn!

I'll be really interested in seeing the finished article (and sound clips?  )

DartmoorHedgehog

@Andyjr1515 - I certainly don't claim to have any violin-building experience, I'm just winging it really.  Out of interest, what was it about yours that the violinist didn't like?  Being simplistic, you hold it at one end and put the other end under your chin, so it seems to my non-violin-player brain that weight distribution shouldn't matter.  But what do I know?!  On the plus side, my tame violinist has held mine in playing position yesterday and reckons it feels like a violin, so perhaps I've been lucky...  I'm basing mine on an existing instrument, but I've seen plenty of similar style to yours as well.

Andyjr1515

DartmoorHedgehog said:

@Andyjr1515 - I certainly don't claim to have any violin-building experience, I'm just winging it really.  Out of interest, what was it about yours that the violinist didn't like?  Being simplistic, you hold it at one end and put the other end under your chin, so it seems to my non-violin-player brain that weight distribution shouldn't matter.  But what do I know?!  On the plus side, my tame violinist has held mine in playing position yesterday and reckons it feels like a violin, so perhaps I've been lucky...  I'm basing mine on an existing instrument, but I've seen plenty of similar style to yours as well.

That was the fatal flaw - I've not got round to finding a violinist to try it to see if it's OK or not!  It might be OK (got a weird multi-adjustable shoulder rest that might be just not adjusted right) but I tried myself and, to me, it was difficult to hold it under the chin with the fretboard in the correct position.  It's been years since I held an acoustic violin in place but my recollection was that it was easier than this one seemed to be...  To me it feels VERY neck heavy.

It went on the wall (it does look great!) while I looked for someone who could try it out properly, but life took over and it's still on the wall! 

I'll take this as a reminder to find a violinist to try it in real life