My Blues Creek D28 kit is just finished waiting for setup

[johnnparchem]

I glued the neck and the bridge on my D28 BRW kit from John Hall. I will wait another day or so before I set it up. I had my share of mistakes with the guitar but I am happy with the way it turned out. This guitar is for me so I can live with its flaws.

I wanted to have it done a couple of weeks ago but the RH dropped so low, I wait until I had it was up for a bit. I also have a humdifier now.

[johnnparchem]

Not quite a guitar, but this violin was a real learning process. I am in a panic still because I need to be finished by next friday.

I still need to darken the neck and the scroll a bit.

[tippie53]

nice indeed

[bmasten]

John,
Nice work, really love that back and sides!

[Ken C]

Nice John...and violins too?! I presume a violin would require more work than an acoustic guitar. No frets, but carving and more intricate sides. Did you build the violin from a kit or is a scratch build? Very cool.

Ken

[johnnparchem]

Thanks all for looking.

The Violin is a Waldron Instrument kit. It is a more expensive than the stewmac kit, but it comes with a case, a bow and all of the other components are ebony, whereas stewmac uses basewood.

It is not too hard to build the kit. The only tricky part (other than finishing) is the purflings. They are in about a quater inch from the edge. I needed to get a tool for my dremel as you need to reference the edge of the back and front rather than the sides. The purflings for the inside curves need to be pre-bent on a small bending pipe. Also there are four miter joints per front or back.

The neck is glued on. You have to carve out the slot in the body with a saw and a sharp chisel. I built a tool to get the neck angle just right.

I have been finishing it with behlen violin varnish, which is shellac with gum mastic and gum sanarac. After a couple of brushed on seal coats with diluted varnish (10% thinner), I have been spraying on color coats. I added a few squirts of colortone vintage amber and a squirt of medium brown and sprayed on a couple of coats. I took what was left and added another squirt of medium brown and have been spraying the darker finish on to get a slight sunburst effect and highlight the scroll.

I have a scratch build violin as one of my builds for next year to give to my niece for her birthday.

[tippie53]

I do respect anyone that does a carved top instrument they are not easy

[Ken Hundley]

Beautiful, both the guitar and the violin. I was gong to build one for my neice, but she stopped playing. Too bad for her.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Great work John, the brazilian is very striking too. Impressive.
The violin kit looks harder than you have made it out to be.
Thanks for sharing.

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

I have a rough setup but I have the strings on and I can play it. I still need to take a little bit of relief out of the neck. There is no problem getting to the truss rod. Then I will lower the action a little both at the nut and the saddle. I will finish the setup tomorrow when I can go at it with a fresh perspective. I will also put the pickguard on as soon as I can find it in my shop.

I have Martin medium strings I am thinking of switching to lights, but what do I know I play classical mostly.

It was fun to string it up and to hear it. The guitar does have a lot of sound.