Cutting the Purfling Channel

Violinmaking is a lot of fun for me but it is also a lot of tedious work. This week (and the next few to follow) covers a process that takes a lot of patience and can really mark the difference between a craftsman and an amateur maker. I’ve moved on to inlaying the purfling which requires very small cuts, chisels and fractions of millimeters to make. Purfling is best described as the black lines that outline the instrument. On most instruments they are inlayed and they act as both decorative and protect against cracks that form on the edge. This week I started cutting the channel to put the purfling into and I ran into a lot of difficulties again working with maple to spruce.

First, let me refresh where I was at the end of last week. The plates were glued together and there were very slight differences in the pattern that I evened out with a file.

After everything looked even and square, the plates were separated and Mr. Vartanian had me sand down the edge very flat so I could trace the purfling channel.

I then used a purfling tool which you can find pictured in the Tools section to trace the channel a certain distance in from the squared off edge. Any imperfections in the edge are displayed in the channel and may have to be fixed later on. Also, if the blades aren’t perpendicular or the tool isn’t pressed down enough to make a line, it is very difficult to go back and trace.

Once the channel was traced, Mr. Belote let me use a sharp knife and a handmade chisel to cut the channel out. The knife is used to cut deeper into the traced line and make it easier to chisel out the wood.

As I mentioned earlier this is very tedious work. Even with the knife cuts, the wood doesn’t always come out of the grove very cleanly. In order for the purfling to lie nicely, the channel should be about 2.5mm deep and flat on the bottom. I finished the back and found out I was at most 2mm deep in spots and much shallower in most sections.

I am also leaving the corners alone at this point. The purfling tool doesn’t help bring the channel to a point as is standard on most violins. The point where purfling pieces meet is called a bee-sting usually. In great violins this is very clean, follows very smooth lines, and is done all by hand and eye. Mr. Vartanian worked on two corners for me that I will be copying and cleaning. When looking at the craftsmanship of a violin, how much attention a maker puts into the corner and how well it’s done truly says a lot about their skill and probably the craftsmanship on the rest of the instrument. While this isn’t a guarantee it is a good place to start and will be interesting to see how mine end up.

As I started working on the top a lot of problems started happening again. The direction of the grain causes bumps for the knife and even tracing the channel is difficult because the tool can get caught in a straight line and not curve around nicely. The other difficulty is how easy it is to split the grain and cause chips if one is not careful. For as slow as I went, it is not second nature to know how the knife is cutting the grove and a few chips occurred.

The first of these and a few others will disappear as I do more work but the second and a corner was glued just in case.

So my next task is going back over all the work I did which is what makes this part so frustrating in a way. But I am still having fun and for those of you who never know what those lines were on your instrument, I hope you now appreciate how they got there.