2013-07-01
After almost a month of other priorities, this afternoon I completed the purfling grooves on Ashley's fiddle. First I sketched out the continuation of existing grooves. Then, starting with the back, I carefully cut the outer part of the outlines with a sharp X-Acto knife. Then I cut the inner outline, gradually deepening the cut line. Using a specialty chisel, I removed a little of the waste at each pass. Between passes I deepened the cut line. Eventually the points matched the existing grooves in width and depth. At each point I cut a single line to allow the "bee sting" part of the purfling to extend to a point. The line past where the button will be on the back was easier.
The spruce top went much faster of course. Compared to the bird's eye maple, the spruce cuts very easily. Even so, it took about three hours to complete all the grooves.