Will’s Blog Posts:
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Sound Testing #5 Edward With #5, Edward, playable in the white, I did a set of recordings for comparison to when Edward will have his varnish on. The recordings consist of a set of open string bowings; G, D, A, E and then a D major scale, and a three octave A major scale. The…
Today Edward, Violiln #5, was setup and played in the white. Edward was started in February of 2014. When I went to the Tuscon violin making workshop, Edward’s ribs were done and the plate edges were trimmed. Today setup was completed in the white, prior to varnishing. The reason I’m setting up Edward before varnishing…
Finally after several years of study, 2 workshops, months of trail and error varnishing; I’ve finished Diana #4. She is varnished, setup, and played!!! Claude #3 will be completed later this week. I wasn’t content with the color and stripped him to do a second run, which came out very nice. I will say that…
After many false starts and learning many new things about color theory, oil painting, glazing, etc etc my violins are starting to look like violins.
Finally at the stage of varnishing my early violins. The following photos show the varnishing stages of Beatrice my second violin. This photo shows Beatrice with two coats of cold rolled linseed oil. I actually use the food grade fax oil from the health food store. Also she has two clear coats of a oil…
Today is that point where we cut holes in the front of the violin plate which we just spent 4 days making contoured, inlaid, smoothed, and very thin. We are going to draw intricately curved lines, drill four holes in the middle of the plate, cut between the holes with a jewelers fret saw, and…
Days 7&8 were spent shaping the outer curves of the top and bottom plates. With the purfling done, the height of the outer edges is set. The purfling line will be gouged down with a small gouge (approx 6mm) and then a larger gouge will carry the curve into the body of the plate a…
Three days of learning and building. We started by making a model template out of aluminum, transfering that to a plywood mold, making and gluing top, bottom, and corner blocks, thinning the side pieces, bending and gluing the side pieces to the mold,putting linings on the bottom side of the mold. Then…
Since I was in my teens I’ve dreamed of making a violin. My first book on the subject was a Christmas gift from my Dad when I was 20 years old along with a scooping gouge for hollowing a violin plate. Dad was an avid wood worker until a stroke took away his coordination in…
Until this point in time, Howery Violins has had a face book presence at facebook.com/howeryviolins, now a WordPress site is being built to carry the blogs, news and happenings of William Howery’s journey in violin making