After a couple of weeks of no progress, I am back to where I was before I messed up the first
scroll. Actually, I'm a bit farther along, in that I have the scrolls on both sides roughed out.
I'm using one of the blocks that had been roughed out at some time in the past. The grain is a
bit irregular, but so far I can't see any other reason why it would have been put aside.
I also resharpened my tools. It's quite amazing how much difference there is
between "sharp" and "almost sharp"! Even with the irregular grain, I'm getting a nice clean curl
of wood as I move around the volute. Although I'm following the pencil lines I drew, I'm finding
that just looking at the progress and going with a sense of proportion and "rightness" gives a
more pleasing shape.
I sat in on a seminar at Lee Valley Tools last Friday night -
"Introduction to Bowmaking" where John Sirdevan talked about how with enough experience and
exposure to many bows, you "just know" what's right and what's not about a bow. A couple of
weeks ago, I took another seminar, "Introduction to Violinmaking", with Mathew Schmidt. Mathew
is the grandson of Ernie Schmidt, an amateur violinmaker who my father used to know quite well.
I learned quite a bit from Mathew in that seminar. As he pointed out though, there's always so
much more to learn.