Topic: building a cello (a new approach)

[piersdad]

                Kay Edgecumbe cellos

My interest was sparked when my daughter asked me to make her a violin and, well I am a handy man, but miracles are a bit difficult.
No wood to start with I researched and found that southland beech and Canadian cedar were similar.
My daughter had a $3000 viola so I did not expect the violin to get much praise.
Months later she took the finished violin to orchestra.
Rough as guts but it was dad’s best effort so it went.
When she came home she gave me a huge hug and said the friends were jealous, as her violin was the best sounding one in the orchestra.

 My first cello was not very good as I copied  all the traditional  things  and so with my engineering back ground spent the next year researching supplies of wood etc.
A local advert for sycamore firewood and a delivery of a truck full of complete logs gave me a supply of essential wood for the back and sides.

Canadian cedar from the local wood merchant was all I needed for the rest.

 Well the next cello was fantastic and as most of the wood was small I enquired as to where the sycamore wood came from and eventually in the distant mountain area I found a farm with a grove of trees, mostly elms and oaks.
But the farmer said some self sown sycamores had to be thinned out as they were just firewood to him.
Well this sycamore was  so big my arms would not reach around it and 40 feet to the first branch.
I returned with a huge car trailer, chain saws, and a friend and we cut the tree down and cut it into suitable sized logs.
With approx 2 tons of wood on the trailer we drove home with our prize.

I used an electric chain saw to cut the logs into manageable slices all cut so that each piece was quarter sawn ie from the centre to the outside.

I built a large circular saw and proceeded to cut the pieces  into suitable slices that would make cello necks and cello backs.
The smaller pieces were set aside for violins and harps etc.
 Well to day that was nearly 30 years ago and still I have a large pile of wood stored in a special rack and maybe enough left for 6 cellos and a lot still not sawn up for cello backs.
The borer has demolished some pieces but they have kindly told me which woods are too soft to use.

so after cutting and bending the 1.3 mm sycamore sides i glued them to the corner posts set in the mould



here the linings of soft wood are about to be glued to the sides befor the back wood can be cut to the precises size of the mold
i make the back and front to fit the mold much more accurate than the traditional method of making the mold and sides fit the finished top and back.

came  across this school of violin making 3 dimensioned picture of their work shop  amazing pic.
very traditional almost a 200 year time warp
http://www.utah3d.net/panoramas_5/violin-school.html

after the sides have been reinforced with the inner linings on the bottom edge the profile is drawn on the back wood with at least 4 mm extra wood to allow for movement etc and the back is cut out from the 27mm thick back wood of sycamore of maple.
at this point he inner frame is still holding the sides firmly.

with the back cut out the outside has to be profiled and this can be a 8 hour or more job to get the outside of the back shaped to the correct profile.

 then it is turned over and the back thicknessed to with in 5 thousands of an inch of the correct strad thicknesses  a full sized back should weigh approx 700 grams  the center should be 270 thou and the top  bottom bouts 145 thou.



hollowing out the back in frame
 the same with the front


the front  ready to put the 'F' holes in (very accurately)

88a Mackworth st Christchurch  ph 03 9814888 Kay Edgecumbe