iLuthier

LEFT: David S. Brown, violin maker.

David S. Brown peers closely at the purfling line on the belly of a violin, the sunlight fighting it’s way through the multi-paned window of his sixteenth century style workshop and into the darkness within. It is a scene which would not appear too out of place in far off Cremona but is, in actual fact, from a leafy outer suburb of Melbourne, Australia. In fact the entire scene is so authentic looking that David, and his workshop, have been featured in a painting for an historically accurate book about the traditional woods used in a variety of crafts.

David was born in Tasmania. In the late 1960′s he won a scholarship to the Nuechatel School of Watchmaking in Switzerland when we was 22 years old. He ended up being the top student of his year and when David returned to Australia he continued to work as a watchmaker for another 20 years until technology and a restless spirit forced him to consider another professional direction.

“I have worked with timber all my life and was used to fine detail with my watchmaking”, says David, “I’m also fascinated by Japanese culture and philosophy and I’ve been making traditional Shoji screens and Shakuhachi flutes for some time now. The history of Japanese Shakuhachi flutes goes back some 700 years but I wanted to make something that had a long heritage from my own culture so when violin-maker Warren Fordham offered to teach me how to make violins I jumped at the opportunity. I then spent five years with him learning the various techniques of violinmaking and then eventually took over his studio here in Montsalvat, Victoria.”

Most of the time David makes his violins from Australian timbers, often using a combination of European spruce with Tasmanian myrtle or blackwood. “King Billy pine from Tasmania is much sought after by European violin-makers as it has such special qualities,” he says. “It’s one of the few timbers in the world that can be used for violins and is very hard to get as it’s endemic only to southern Tasmania.”

LEFT: Viola, belly (European spruce), body (Tasmanian blackwood), chin rest (Gippsland blackwood) and tailpiece (ringed gidgee)

“Every single violin is different and every piece of timber has to be worked differently, depending on its elasticity, strength and weight. I record every detail of each violin that I make, so that I have some correlation between good and bad instruments, but generally I manage to make violins that have a good tonal quality. The only way to become a good violin-maker is to make a lot of them. It’s the watchmaker in me that enjoys fine detail.”

Such is the personal touch, attention to detail and the passion in all of David’s instruments.

In the coming months iLuthier will feature more of David’s work as well as some pictures of his workshop. Unfortunately David doesn’t have a website but we’ve provided his contact details below:

David S. Brown
Montsalvat
Hillcrest Ave
ELTHAM VIC 3095
(03) 9439 9699

(Taken largely from Country Style)

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Warren Nolan-Fordham is a professional violin maker and silversmith who is totally committed both to his vocation and to using Australian Timbers. During the late 1980′s and early 1990′s he lived and worked in Montsalvat, an artists colony in Eltham, Victoria, where his cottage contained his fifteenth century styled workshop, crammed with instruments. He now lives and works from his workshop situated in Preston in Melbourne, where he works long hours, his life utterly dictated by the work pattern of making and repairing. If he goes out it will most likely be to spend time with other instrument makers. He has had a lot of help and encouragement from Kevin Williams – one of Australia’s premiere violin makers – whose knowledge of timber is unsurpassed.

Nolan-Fordham began as a self taught maker, building his first instrument when he was just 15, and was later awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1979 to study in London. Although never an apprentice in any real sense, Nolan-Fordham allied himself with some practising instrument makers in Melbourne. Two who were particularly helpful to him were Colin Cerr, a repairer, and Tom Lewis, a violin maker.

Good tools, it seems, are very difficult to obtain and Nolan-Fordham considers that “part of the concept of making is to have good tools”. He was fortunate enough to buy a collection of vintage handmade tools in an old shop in London and says these are made from much finer steel than is used in today’s mass-produced tools.

Nolan-Fordham believes that part of what makes a violin maker good is an instinctive feeling for timbers, “a feeling for shape and form in the wood”. He also sees the secret of good instrument making as one craftsperson retaining “personal control” over the whole process, distinguishing the so-called “handmade” production-line instruments from those made in small numbers.

He has perfected an instrument which he calls his “soloist” violin, and has orders for as many as he can make.

One of the few violin makers working exclusively in Australian timbers, Nolan-Fordham proudly asserts that they give better results and that he would always use Australian timbers which he feels are “outstandingly better” than, say, the spruce traditionally used. He uses Tasmanian mountain ash or Australian blackwood for the neck, scroll, back and sides, King William pine for the belly and willow for the blocks and linings. He makes new bows and repairs old ones with brumby (wild pony) hair.

Nolan-Fordham has also included native floral designs, eucalyptus leaves, roses and gumnut designs using pyrography on some his ornate instruments.

He prefers the ornate instruments of the Brescian school from the late 1500s to the mid-1750s. Indeed, perhaps eccentrically, he has even adopted the lifestyle of the fifteenth century, saying “I was born 400 years too late”.

You can check out Warren’s official website at www.warren-nolan-fordham.com or contact him at:

Warren Nolan-Fordham
20 Albert Street
Preston, 3072
Melbourne
Australia

Ph: 0425701821

This passage has been updated, but taken largely from the book “Australian Made, Australian Played” by Michael Atherton.

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Here are some tips For Joining Archetop or violin backs & faces… There are at least two streams of thought for this which I’ll cover – “dead flat” and “spring”.

With the dead flat method you basically take some very light passes over the jointer or with your hand plane – so light in fact that you take just the slightest amount off of the plate’s joint. You can then finish off with a DEAD flat sanding block around 2″ or 3″ wide and 16″ to 18″ long. You might want to laminate this – so that there’s less warpage – out of mahogany or hard maple. Anything which is dimensionally stable will do. Alternatively you could use a scrap piece of 1″ thick glass or granite.

After you’ve made your “block” you can then glue a strip of 100 grit to the flat side with contact cement, and being careful to keep it flat on the surface, dress the archtop joint until it’s free of tiny scallops and other planer marks.

NOTE: To do this properly on your jointer you need to line up both infeed and outfeed tables exactly with a good metal straight edge. If either one is tipped up or down, even a hair, they can’t plane straight. You might be able to get away with it a bit more for furniture projects and the like but even a slight alignment problem would show up on archtop plates.

The second method essentially asks you to do away with the above advice and actually create a gappy or “spring” joint. A lot of the old time woodworkers went to a lot of trouble to create this joint so that the two pieces would then be pulled together when clamped. The reasoning behind this is that you want a bit of pressure on the ends of the plates because the end grain is subject to quicker drying which tends to pull on the joint at the ends – in theory evening things out.

The way to go about making a joint such as this is to apply more downward pressure as you approach the middle of the plate and then ease off at the ends. That should leave you with a barely visible gap in the middle of a short piece, a somewhat more visible gap on a larger piece. You should still be able to push the joint together fairly easily with hand pressure though so there’s no light visible.

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