A plate is a shell. How thick, how stiff and how light it is in the right places is the whole instrument. Take the gouge to a slab of spruce, carve the arching, thin the inside to a taper and leave the edge full. The modal model reads the wood you leave behind.
DRAGto carveSPACEto cut with the keyboardA S D Fplay the stringsESCpause
Three commissions. A plate that collapses ends the shop.
THE ASHBY PARISH
Commission one
A parish violin.
How the bench works
The mould fixes the outside of the plate. You cannot change it. The gouge cuts the inside.
Depth per pass is how much the blade takes. A shallow cut repeated is finer than one deep cut.
Graduation is the taper across the plate. At zero the plate thins evenly and goes stiff and mute. Near one it thins the middle and leaves the edge standing.
The purfling cut sets the channel ploughed around the edge. Cut it deep and the edge loses its section; cut it shallow and the edge is a dead rim.
The thinnest point is the whole instrument. Under 0.78 mm the reviewer will not pass it. Under 0.30 mm it collapses and the commission is over.
Take the plate off the mould when you are done carving. A0 is the air resonance: it comes out of the cavity you hollowed, and the client wants it on the mark.
Strings are A, S, D, F for G, D, A, E. Play the note on the string the score asks for.
Paused
The plate is wrapped. Nothing dries while you think.