Tag Archives: ebony

Replacing A Broken Tongue

As published in the IPCI Book. The following article describes a procedure we use in our shop to repair a broken tongue made of ebony. When this procedure is successfully completed, the grafted tongue will be as strong as the original and the repair will be virtually invisible. This procedure is not appropriate for tongues made of […]

Preparing a New Fingerboard

Even though you can buy a fingerboard blank from your supplier, it is not ready to be put on the instrument. A little prep work is involved to get the blank ready. In this article I will cover the method I use for preparing a new fingerboard. MATERIALS AND TOOLS -Fingerboard blank -Block plane with […]

Illustrating the Relationship Between Humidity and Wood

Cheval

A cheval is a form of wood replacement. Often, due to a bow frog’s small size, an entire section of wood has to be replaced with new wood to reinforce the structure and to supplement missing wood. Traditionally, a cheval is performed by planing away original material and replacing it with new wood. A rounded cheval maximizes the surface area […]

Raising the Projection

This is a guide to a common adjustment, especially in times when instruments experience higher than average humidity. Excess moisture in the air can cause the spruce top of an instrument to swell, most notably in a transverse direction (perpendicular to the grain). Since the plate is fixed around the edges, it has nowhere to go […]

Making a Violin Nut

The nut is a piece of the setup process that many people overlook. However, it is important to get it right. A well made nut allows the strings to flow unimpeded into the pegbox. It affects the feel and playability of the instrument and is one of those details that shows the competency of the […]