Andrew Carruthers Violins

I've completed the carving on the outside of the plates. It was fun, making a lot of it up as I went along. When I laid out the two designs in pencil I thought that the O pattern was a little boring but now that they are carved I think that it is the stronger, more direct design.

Next week the really interesting part begins: tuning the plates. I'll be measuring the frequencies for the X and O modes. I'll give the two backs the same X mode frequency and see where the O mode falls. I suspect that the modes will be further apart on the X-Fiddle and closer together on the O-Fiddle. Some makers, who are more sophisticated than me, shape their plates to control these relative frequencies for tonal reasons. If you have any experience working with this I'd love to hear from you.