Going through snapshots from the shop that have been waiting for some attention I ran across this one. These are the first bassbar clamps that I made back before I acquired some more sophisticated models from Alberti Design. These work pretty well, have adjustability (just add more rubber bands) and good directional pressure, depending on how you shape the gripping surfaces.  

I watched the neighborhood kids walking to school carrying backpacks nearly as big as the kids themselves, and realized that the summer is gone, at least on the calendar. In the last few days before Labor Day sounded the death knell of the season, Beth and I acquired a little haven on Lopez Island and I'm looking forward to building a little shop and a little cabin and eventually living the Island lifestyle.

The economy continues to be unfriendly to this shop but hope springs eternal and we look forward to finding homes for a few instruments this year.

Work on cellos continue. The picture below is of a bassbar glue up on a Bulgarian cello that turned out, when it was opened up, to be more of a kit that had been tacked together with glue than a finished instrument. All the linings have/had to be removed, reformed or replace and re-glued. It would have been quicker to build one from scratch.

Note the caul/pads added to the Alberti clamps to spread the load and adapt to the curve of the plate.

Heading down to  the Old Time Gathering in Portland this weekend to play some music and visit violin shops. Traveling with at least four and maybe five violins so if you're in Portland and want to play one, look for the fiddler with too many cases. If you go to the gallery of available instruments you can see the one's I'll be carrying: Novinha, Quara, and Ela, as well as the two I usually play.

Here's the scroll I've been working on, a slightly scaled up version of an Andrea Guarneri  violin scroll to go on a viola.

Yesterday I dropped off these two  instruments at the L&R shop

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This is Ela, a Strad model.                           This is Novinha, a DelGesu model.

Well, at least close. RedDog arrived in NYC beginning on the 17th and ending on the 18th (Tom was the last). Cremona was  very intense; standing in the still, humid air of a small room filled with nine or ten Italian violins from the 16th and 17th centuries (mostly) ignoring the discomfort while trying to see everything for as long as possible. A really charming Guarnarius filius Andreae caught my eye. Dan said he wants a copy of it for his next fiddle and I concur. We walked through the narrow streets of the old city, ate memorable food and took a picture on Via Del Gesu. I will put up some pictures when I find them.

Alafaire's table. The inside is already hollowed and substantially finished with only a little blending to go. The outside is now matched to the inside making any minor corrections necessary. Out of the original glued up blank, most of the spruce will wind up as shavings on the shop floor.