A couple of new sympathetic string fiddles

[graham mcdonald]

Here are a couple of new new fiddles, loosely based on the Norwegian hardanger fiddles, with four sympathetic strings running under the fingerboard. These are tuned d, e, f#, g or a and give a delightful 'whoingy' reverb to the sound. The first is made from a delightful 'streaky' Tasmanian myrtle, quite heavy and hard, with a King Billy soundboard and gidgee fingerboard and tailpiece. Carving the overlapping sound holes requires a whole new approach to carving the soundboard. There will be an article later on in the year in American Lutherie on how I did it.

cheers

graham

H5_3.jpg (110.87 KiB) Viewed 19677 times

[graham mcdonald]

Here is the other one. The customer wanted a tiger myrtle body. Not as heavy as the streaky stuff, but less resonant. It does look wonderful though...
The edges on both are little squares of alternating ebony and olive wood. Quite a relaxing process to stick them all into place. Hardanger bridges are quite different to normal violin bridges, with the little secondary saddle for the sympathetics. They are supposed to be as high up under the fingerboard (which is hollowed out) as possible. The tailpiece is made with eight fine tuners, as keeping the low tension sympathetics in tune would be really hard with the pegs. The owner of the previous fiddle spent some time in Sweden and Norway last year and said the tailpieces caused much comment!

[Kamusur]

Nice work, very well done and love the chin rest too.


Steve

[Mark McLean]

Graham
They are just stunning, original and brilliantly executed. The cat figure on the pegbox, instead of the traditional scroll, is really great also. I am looking forward to your show and tell in American Lutherie- it will really get some attention there. Well done!

Mark

[J.F. Custom]

Beautiful work Graham - very sharp.

Both the Tiger and the Streaky Myrtle look superb in these instruments.

What is the idea behind the 'overlapping' f-holes? It is clear in the images but why is it done and is it traditional or a modern innovation?

Cheers,

Jeremy.

[Allen]

They are both just striking instruments Graham. Very folksy styling taken to a superb craftsman's level. I've never heard one of these played, but really look forward to the day when I can.

The sound holes look very tricky. I'll be reading with interest to see how it's done.

[Kim Strode]

Absolutely glorious instruments...my daughter would die for one of these!

[Bruce McC]

Beautiful work Graham, has the owner collected them yet?

[charangohabsburg]

Absolutely amazing! No... its mesmerising. I could not stop looking at those sound holes for about 20 minutes.
Beautiful wood too, of course. The chin rest's matching of the tiger fiddle is just brilliant! I'm looking forward to that American Lutherie article.

[Clancy]

Exquisite...and still....I'm off to the 'Bush Bash'!!
Love them Graham.
Hope that wombat model your using is a friendly fella!
Are both the necks myrtle?

[ozziebluesman]

I have never heard of this type of violin before.

I too would be interested in their sound.

Beautiful workmanship and choice of wood.

Truly stunning instruments.

Thanks for sharing with us.

Cheers

Alan

[graham mcdonald]

Thank you for the kind comments. Both were delivered to their new owners on Friday at the National Folk Festival and I am told got played a lot around the festival for the rest of the weekend.

The overlapping f-holes are traditional on the Norwegian instruments. No idea why, as it is rather harder to do. The centre section of the soundboard is much flatter than on a standard violin, so instead of just carving the whole outside of the soundboard and then cutting the f holes as you would normally, the centre section is carved, then a vertical line is cut along the top edge of the f holes and then some of the inside is carved so the cuts to open the f holes can be done horizontally. I couldn't work out the sequence until another hardanger maker in Hobart sent me a link to a Norwegian site where the builder has a few photos of how he does it. I'll find that link to night and post it. One the GAL has published the article, I will have it on the website, but the GAL ask for exclusivity until after they publish it.

Both necks are myrtle. The streaky one has several worm holes and resin cavities, all carefully bogged up with epoxy, but such stunning piece of timber. I have one instrument's worth left and on the lookout for more. I just wish I was better at carving wombat heads. I worked off a little terracotta garden ornament as a model, but they still end up looking like non-specific mammals...

cheers

graham

[Craig]

Absolutley stunning Graham. You've got to love Tasmanian Myrtle ,in all it's forms . Incredible instruments .

[charangohabsburg]

I couldn't work out the sequence until another hardanger maker in Hobart sent me a link to a Norwegian site where the builder has a few photos of how he does it.

Thanks for the hint, I believe I have found that Norwegian website (which does not diminish my interest in the AL issue that will feature your article).

[graham mcdonald]

Sorry, forgot to post the link
http://www.fiolinmaker.no/en/tips_trick ... f-hull.php

graham

[Nick]

Sorry, forgot to post the link
http://www.fiolinmaker.no/en/tips_trick ... f-hull.php

graham

That, like your hardanger Graham, is truly amazing! He must have extremely sharp chisel/gouges or a trained beaver. Even his roughing out looks machined with beautiful straight, even depth cuts.
I like the Tiger Myrtle look Graham, inspiring indeed! The tailpiece with it's anchors, is the screw adjustment for 'fine' tuning or to adjust the string break angle?

[graham mcdonald]

I must work at getting my gouges sharper

The fine tuner on the sympathetics are for tuning. They are .008, .009, .010 & .011 plain steel guitar strings, which I think (from trying to translate Norwegian web sites) are about what they normally use. They are at very low tension and it only takes a few degrees of turn on the fine tuners to move their pitch a semitone. The previous fiddle, with its owner, went off to Norway and Sweden and he mentioned the other hardanger players spending a lot of time very finely adjusting the tuning pegs to get the sympathetics in tune and it would only take him a minute or two. I am sure there is a downside in the extra mass in the tailpiece, but it is practical.

cheers

graham

[charangohabsburg]

Thanks for the hint, I believe I have found that Norwegian website (which does not diminish my interest in the AL issue that will feature your article).

Sorry, forgot to post the link
http://www.fiolinmaker.no/en/tips_trick ... f-hull.php

Sorry, I did not want to sound ironic, I really had found the website (yes, the one you indicate now)
I first googled for hardanger Hobart, and then for the name of the luthier I found plus hardanger violin Norway which led me to the site where I found the link to fiolinmaker.no.
I did not post the link because I thought you probably wanted to wait with it until your article was published.

[H3ytm@n]

Sorry, forgot to post the link
http://www.fiolinmaker.no/en/tips_trick ... f-hull.php

graham

Very cool!!

[Trevor Gore]

Brilliant work, Graham!

[P Bill]

Just Beautiful Graham,
I've never had the chance to play one. Everything is so different starting with the body shape and that's just for openers. Love the bridge.

I should get some Hardanger recordings. I hear a bit in the odd movie. Any suggestions?

[P Bill]

I just had a look at the link. It must be the long winters cooped up in the cabin....