A Literal "Carved Top"

[skipjackrc4]

So first off, this is not a tele, or even a guitar. It's an electric violin. I'm posting it here because I think some people will find it interesting, and hopefully someone will be inspired to do something similar. I plan on doing a guitar version of this someday, but thought I'd start with a smaller instrument.

I'm living in an apartment for the next several months, away from my power tools. To fight off boredom, I rough cut this thing back home and brought it and my hand tools with me.



The body is solid cherry, as is the neck. The idea is to carve the body into a 3D celtic knot. There are lines penciled in, but they hardly show up in the picture.



The neck joint that I use for electric violins is a tapered dovetail. This will be glued in right after carving.

I've done a few celtic knot carves before, but nothing this big. Hopefully I don't screw it up... We'll see.

[RogerC]

Wow! That's exquisite. I'm anxious to see it progress.

[Bentley]

lovely!

[kwerk]

That's fantastic! This is going to be great fun to watch, what a terrific idea.

[skipjackrc4]

Thanks guys! I was going to start cutting down the outer edges, but I need a new coping saw blade. Hopefully Lowe's will have them and I can start tomorrow.

[crazydave911]

Mind.............Blowing! , I can't wait for next post

[glen smith]

Oh yes, really interesting concept!

[Jupiter]

That is awesome! Carving it looks like fun. Can't wait to see.

[Moldy Oldy]

This is gonna be cool.

[Davecam48]

Very unique! Congratulations

[src9000]

Very cool.

[adirondak5]

WOW , I'll be watching this

[fretman_2]

Fantastic!!!

[nickhofen]

Fantastic subscribed.

[Picton]

Get carving already, will ya? We're dying here!

[nosmo]

Cool - I like that!

[skipjackrc4]

I got the saw blades today. The plan is to use the coping saw to cut down the external edges and clean them up with a chisel. After getting all the 3D heights set, I will go through and start rounding things over and cleaning up chiseling marks.





Here I chiseled about half of the length. You can see the block on the end where I stopped with the coping saw. That will be chiseled out as well.



This is that side done for now. Everything is pretty smooth (except for the end, which will be rounded over anyway). This cherry is a almost effortless to carve. Which is good, because it gets a lot harder from here.

You may have noticed the grooves in the side. Those are routed in using a drawer bottom bit and are there to hold a shoulder rest. I'll post a picture of this later, for those who are not familiar with violins. Unfortunately, I have to work around these grooves, so the symmetry will be off a little. Oh well. No real way around that.

I plan on doing several more sections today, while relaxing my hand in between. I tend to hold chisels too tightly and can get cramps if I'm not careful. Also, I need to adjust the white balance on the Nikon. The cherry is not actually bright yellow

[buckallred]

Very cool!!

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by buckallred

Very cool!!

What he said

[Tom Pettingill]

Cool