Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
The one placed over the button and the arch of the fingerboard in opposition to it must be sufficiently large, and the hollowed soft wood mould, or pad, should be more highly arched than the fingerboard, so that when pressed down, the outer edges, and not the centre of the latter, should receive the greatest pressure.
It came within my own experience many years back, and the violin was one owned by myself at the time. It had got into a condition not unfrequently seen after bad repairing, that of the fingerboard sinking down too near the table through absence of proper support or sufficient grip of the end of the table where the neck is inserted.
This curvature should be unequal in height or, rather, to express it better, the height on the G side should be so that, at the broad end of the fingerboard, the space between the ebony and the string will be a quarter of an inch, reducing as we get to the E, which registers about one-sixteenth of an inch less, or three-sixteenths of an inch.
The intention seems to be from an economical view, that of removing the ebony, if necessary, without injuring the glued surfaces by pouring a little water down the passage and waiting till the damp enables the fingerboard to be pulled off without fracture. This tedious operation is wholly unnecessary, for the time spent would be worth more than a new one with its trimming up.
You will gather all this from plates of scroll. After all are done, in brace bit 29, position 28, I place taper bit 59, and cut, E, A, D, G, finishing approximately for pegs with tool 15. Then, before I fix the neck into the violin, I attach the fingerboard and nut the latter in rough ebony, as I always work this neater with some wood over and above what I want.
This part now, if the fitting of the fingerboard to the graft has been neatly done, will show no line of glue or joint, but simply the difference of material. The upper edges of the ebony may be rounded down along to the end, but less at the lowest. The whole affair, however, is not yet complete, as the surface to be varnished must be made ready for it.
There will now be necessary the marking off a part on the graft that shall represent the thickness of the nut or the distance between the end of the fingerboard and the peg-box opening; the breadth across, or we may call it the length of the upper part of the nut, will be exactly that of and at the part where the opening will be made in the peg-box for the reception of the graft.
Should the violin require a fingerboard less in length than this, a small portion must be sawn off, preferably from the small end. Great care must be exercised that it is done in right angles with a central line drawn from end to end.
As to the distance between the strings, where they pass over the bridge, this is also a point somewhat of controversy, and applies, as do my remarks in reference to the fingerboard nut there is no rule; but a very useful mean distance is seven-sixteenths of an inch.
But we are on the work of a new neck; therefore the marking off should be done to some general standard. A good one may be reckoned as follows, for a violin of fourteen inches long and average width total length of fingerboard, exclusive of nut, ten and a half inches greatest width, one inch and five-eighths, width at nut, one-sixteenth under an inch.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking