Kolodziej Violins

Update on the Stroh.

2011-07-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

Really coming together now. Soldered the horn to the bottom plate, neck joint is glued and tight, and the hardware is fitted and drilled. There is still a long way to go as far as the resonator goes. May be trying a few methods and going with what works best. As of now I think my cover plate is muffling the resonator. Trying more coil tension?

I got pretty anal about getting the grain count and the overall grade of wood to match the existing neck with the newly carved body. Also when you only have one glue joint I figure it's worth the time to make it a suction fit. There will be a button cover to add some extra strength.

Up for sale now!

2011-07-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

I have three new ones for sale. The first products of my new shop. Right now I'm listing on Craigslist until I find a better solution for web visibility. If you are interested drop me a line.

My favorite one

SOLD

Easy to play

SOLD

For a child ages 8-12

Link To Listing

New Location!!

2011-07-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

The green door at the end of the hall.

Yesterday I moved into my new shop. Located in Beverly Massachusetts at the Porter Mill studio building, check them out at http://studiosatportermill.blogspot.com/ here are some pictures from my shop the first day. Shop hours will be posted soon. If anyone wants to visit or set up an appointment drop me a line at akology@gmail.com.

Stroh Violin.

2011-07-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

I have been fascinated with these violins for a while. They were designed in the early days of sound recording when fiddles, that are designed to fill a room with sound, where just not focused enough for early microphones. Johannes Stroh remedied this by incorporating the idea of a small resonating membrane that transmits sound into a directional horn. This focused the sound uni-directionally and with greater volume. they are still used in romanian folk music today.
My horn violin is an experiment crossing my limited knowledge of resonator guitars and designs of the Stroh that I have seen. Im using a handmade steel resonator with copper cover plates. instead of an all metal resonating chamber I'm using the wood to "expand" the sound forcing it through to the horn.

Reverse engineering is becoming somewhat of a career for me.

Smoke Damage

2011-06-07T10:37:00.001-07:00

This top had a strange pattern in the varnish. I couldn't tell until I started cleaning it that it was from exposure to smoke. My whole shop smelled like a fireplace as I was removing the soot. Pictured below is the top with some of the mess removed. I will need to check every seem for the glue as heat will destroy its bonding strength. so far it seems ok except for the end block that needs to be replaced due to a crack caused by a poorly fitting end-pin.Below is one of the corners as I found it. The gray is all soot and has now been removed. The varnish is actually closer to a honey color. I will be posting after pictures as soon as the entire instrument is cleaned.

Fittings

2011-06-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

One of the most deceptive parts of setting up a newly repaired violin is how much material needs to be removed from blank fittings. The picture to the right shows the before and after on some parts. Pegs and endpins need to be shaved down to size, drilled through to accept the string, cut to length and lightly burnished. The bridge needs to be thinned and the feet fit exactly to the arching, and finally adjusted for tonality. Nuts need to be heavily thinned and groved for the strings and planed to fit in the notch above the fingerboard. the same goes for the saddle. Everything needs to be lubricated with either graphite or dry soap.

The worst part is this is the last step before you can first hear what a Fiddle is going to sound like, so you want to rush but this is one of the most finicky stages of set up and if you rush you will just have to do it again.

Knots...whatever.

2011-05-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

This violin surprisingly does not suffer in sound, despite the two large knots in the top. I don't envy the person who had to carve, and scrape this evenly. The knots must have taken some time to work into an even surface, with some wacky chisel moves around the swirl in the grain.

Fingerprint Varnish.

2011-05-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

This fiddle has a cool fingerprinted varnish. something I had not seen yet. The gradation in the finish is done by layering varnish thickly using your fingers and supplementing with brushing on and polishing off further layers. the upper bout of the back looks like leopard spots.

Fingerboard Shaping.

2011-05-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes results are slow in the coming. This is an afternoons work shaping fingerboards and fittings. The pile above is about the size of my hand. Fingerboard blanks are pretty big and need a lot of material removed. To the right are two boards one new and one shaped and finished. the size difference is pretty apparent. below is the board and nut ready to be glued into place.

Scroll Scale

2011-05-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a set of scrolls. You can see the quality of carving improve from top down. Getting a nice even ascention from step to step with each curl is a good indicator of quality. The scroll, while contributing nothing to the sound, is a nice indicator of the overall quality of a violin. If you know what to look for that is.

Best fake label.

2011-05-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

People always ask about and, for some reason, trust their violins label. The truth is they may as well all be like this. Its rare to find one that is 100% factual. and most are utter lies, or half truths. I understand the impulse to cling to a nice easy to read label written in fake latin or italian. but never trust a label. The only important thing is how the fiddle is made.

Anyway..this made me laugh, and inspired me to make my own faked labels.

Luthier jokes are terribly rare and inside.

anyone?

(..crickets..)

Leave the Scratches please.

2011-04-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the back of a larger Strad model that needed tons of repair. A heavier built model made for traveling and with plenty of power. It Has a happy home on the back of a harley.

The scratch on the upper bass side is what I live for. its such a great shape. The painter in me would think it was intentional, and a good addition.

Amati Rules!

2011-04-12T22:41:00.000-07:00

I loved working on this violin. An Amati copy was a nice change of pace from all the Strad models I have gotten. It had a large crack in the lower treble bout that was previously, and horribly repaired with white glue and another one of those needle and thread cleats, where for some reason they used thick black string to pull up the cleat. It's up and running now with nice little diamond cleats. This one has my kind of voice, great lows with rich slightly muted highs. The color is so unique, it was quite a challenge to match. It had a surprising amount of green in it which could be the result of using "Dragons Blood Resin" that fades from a rich red to green yellow.

I'm rather proud of my replacement wing on the lower bass f-hole, I defy you to spot where the original wood ends.

Lill's Cello.

2011-04-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a perfect example of a cheap instrument bought and given up for being to hard to play. This is a Chinese Cello that sounded terrible and was near impossible to play. Mostly it was the bridge, someone had obviously bought a bridge blank and just threw it under the strings without bothering to fit it to the top, thickness it, or adjust it to the resonance of the instrument. After a tune up, new soundpost, pegs refit and doped, strings rewound correctly, bridge cut and fit, and it sounds great!

The Sign-Makers Fiddle

2011-04-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a repair I did for a Local sign maker. The fingerboard is hardwood, not ebony. It was dyed with god knows what, and the dye came off on your fingers. I scraped down and burnished the living hell out of it. now its nice and shiny, scooped out and ready for more play. We decided to leave it "naked" figuring that if you have anything less than an ebony board you should own it, its a pretty piece of maple anyway.

Regraduation

2011-04-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the top to the 3/4 violin in the previous photo. It needs to be regraduated. You can see in the photo how rough the inside is, the bassbar is carved right out of the top wood. It also has two cleats on a crack under the bass f-hole done with needle and thread from the outside. I hate this type of repair as no matter how thin a thread they use it always seams to show up, the cleats also don't fit quite right.

It looks so sad right now.

The Waiting Room

2011-04-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

The some violins I'm working on. All various states of repair. Third from the left is the first fiddle I ever made. It looks so crude to me now!

The In House Shop.

2011-04-12T20:33:00.001-07:00

My in home shop. I can't wait for my real studio to open up.