For the violin to have an excellent sound, two important factors must come together, firstly the use of high-quality woods dried naturally after a slow process of at least ten years, and secondly, the construction technique where the sensitivity of the craftsman It must manifest itself in your own work. Three types of wood are used to make a violin, spruce, maple and ebony. Ramón Oliveras already has the pieces he will need cut and dried. Our friend, the luthier, begins his work by gluing the two symmetrical boards of each of the covers with a special glue.This glue is made of animal skins and bones, it does not have to be tails, other things white, it does not have to be this glue , which is the one already used by Stradivarius, Guarnerius and all these great luthiers. With a few small blows, the glued pieces will be completely flat on the surface of the press. After 24 hours the glue has dried and the luthier can continue with the process. To do this, with a template, transfer the shape of the violin top to the table. With the band saw you will be in charge of giving the final shape to the wood. The two tops of the violin are practically identical in shape, the main difference is in the type of wood used, for the top top the ideal wood is spruce and for the bottom it is maple. On a reinforced pressure screw, with boards that protect the piece, Ramón goes over the entire contour of the violin top with the file. "Now with this pencil point I will mark the entire contour of the top to have a reference to what the violin's staff should be." To roughly rough the lid, the craftsman places it on a wooden support that he calls a bed. In this work you will use the gouges, but before you start you must sharpen them very well on three stones of different grain. Starting from an oval mark that he has made with the template in the center of the lid, Ramón gradually lowers the part that will remain on the outside with the gouge, always respecting the center that will allow him to maintain the bulging shape. Ramón loves music and loves the violin. He was born as he says in the middle of music, his father was a violinist, his brother was also a musician and he himself played in an orchestra. After cutting the wood with the gouge, our friend the luthier uses three small special metal brushes of this profession, with an inside-out movement following the grain, these brushes allow him to access all the corners of the wood. Ramón's fondness for this instrument led him in 1956 to build his first violin. Encouraged by his father for ten years, he continued giving life to violins and perfecting their sound. Then he went to the city of Cremona, the Italian cradle of this instrument and with maestro Stefano Cony, he learned some classical keys that he applied to his good work to create his own style. This process is very slow and the craftsman needs about 10 hours of work to lower the outer part of the lid to the mark of the bead. The burnisher is a kind of lime but without breadnut striae uses to prepare the cutting of the three cutter edge different needs this burnishing makes two distinct phases in the first sharpening section and in the second it chafa sidewards With the different steel blades, Ramón scratches the surface of the lid until it is well polished. The concave or horseback shape, as they say in the trade, is already noticeably appreciated. The sanding is also meticulous and the luthier uses sandpaper of different grain sizes until the lid is completely polished. "The next phase is to empty the lid from the inside." For the emptying of the inside of the lid, Ramón Oliveras follows the same guidelines as for the exterior with the gouge he lowers the wood and then with the brushes, he goes over it very carefully to control its thickness at all points "The lid cannot have all a thickness to the general if it is not going to pieces, according to which pieces are thicker according to which pieces are thinner. " When the top of the violin has the appropriate thicknesses, on the outside Ramón marks the fs with a template. These fs must be open at specific points and with an exact size. "The efes serve for the sound of the violin to penetrate inside and come out again." Once the efes have been marked, the luthier cuts them with a saw wire held in his hand, because, due to the width of the lid, he cannot use framed saws. "Well the efes are already finished." Once the fuses were finished, Ramón glued the harmonic bar in the right place, a key piece for the good sound of the violin. "What the harmonic bar serves is to give strength to the low notes." All the details of making a violin are meticulous and necessary to achieve optimum sound quality. Along the entire contour of the caps, Ramón makes a slot about two millimeters deep to insert the fillets. "Now I'm going to heat the piece of iron and then wet the fillets, and give them the shape they have to have." The fillet is a very thin strip composed of three layers of wood, one of maple in the center and two of ebony on the sides. To fit it into the groove of the Ramón lids in the iron mold, heat the wet fillet until it is shaped to your liking. With great patience, the craftsman introduces this thin strip of wood that, in addition to having an ornamental function, serves to give a small vibration to the covers, gaining quality in the sound. "It has to go very tight and well glued that it could unglue and come out." When the fillet is already glued, Ramón goes over it with the blade first and then with the sandpaper, until it is even with the entire surface. The two tops, the top one and the bottom one, are already finished. Now Ramón proceeds to make the violin ring for this, he marks the six strips he needs on maple wood strips. To be able to bend the wooden strips without breaking, the luthier heats the cast iron over it and taking advantage of its shape, curve and patience molds each of the strips previously moistened in the water. With the heat, each of the strips takes the shape corresponding to the part that it will occupy on the violin. In the wooden mold Ramón has already placed the six reinforcements of the strips, which are blocks where they will be glued. With a brush, apply glue to the reinforcements and to the part of the girdle that has to be glued to them. After adjusting them in their final place, with special jacks, press each of the bands. For the glue to act, the cats must be at least a whole day pressing the glued areas. 24 hours have passed and the girdles are already attached to the reinforcements forming a single piece. Ramón gives a few small blows to lower the mold and free one of the contours, there the reinforcement slats will be placed. To fix these ramón slats follow the same guidelines as for the strips, first take the measurements of the 12 pieces that you will need 6 for each contour, then you must give them the curved shape with the hot iron mold, and the wood of spruce wet so that it does not break. The iron molds that this craftsman uses are of different shapes and sizes depending on the piece to be bent. "Now I am marking with the pencil everything that occupies the pieces of these for the tail to have a guide where the tail must be placed so as not to pass." Once the outline has been marked with the width that the Ramón reinforcement strip should have, glue the pieces one by one. To maintain the necessary pressure during glue drying, this luthier uses conventional tweezers reinforced with a rubber band. During the eight to ten hours it takes for the glue to dry, the clamps will exert even pressure when placed next to each other, all over the reinforcement. "The pieces are already glued." When the glue is dry and the reinforcements have been attached to the girdle, Ramón removes the clamping pliers and prepares to do the same on the other contour. With small taps of the hammer, he removes the mold and leaves the girdle with one of the reinforcements. Now following the same working guidelines, glue the reinforcement strips on the other side in a luthier and press them with the tweezers. The gluing must be perfect, as any failure could affect the sound of the instrument "And we already have all the glued pieces. After 10 hours of being glued, the tweezers can be removed." "All the rings are already glued together with the entire skeleton of the violin." The skeleton of the violin are the spruce studs and slats that have been glued to the sash. With a sandpaper that he has prepared himself, the luthier goes over the edges so that they fit well with the lids. Now is the time to glue the covers. For greater comfort at work, Ramón uses an outer mold. The top of the violin back is made of maple wood, stronger than spruce because it has to spit the sound out. In the rest it is practically the same as the upper cover except for some small differences in the thicknesses and in that it does not lead to the efes. Once the lower cap is attached to the ring or band, the luthier presses with the jacks but without overdoing it, since the caps are very thin and could break. To protect the wood and so that the pressure is uniform around the contour of the violin, place small pieces lined with felt between the iron and the wood. Another 8 or 10 hours will have to wait until the glue dries. "The maple back is already glued on, now I'm going to take it out of the mold." After removing the cats with small taps on the skeleton, Ramón removes the body made of the violin from the mold. "Well we already have it glued." In order to be able to glue the fir top cover well, the box rests on a padded fabric bed that protects the wood from rubbing against the bench. The process is identical, gluing the two surfaces to be glued, adjusting the lid to the girdle and then placing the jacks to press the entire contour, but in this case the jacks will be the luthier's specials. "They are made of wood because they make enough force so that the lid is well glued" Another 10 hours of waiting for the glue to dry and the violin case will be closed and finished. 72 pieces fit in a violin and all of them are essential. The luthier must not lose or underestimate any detail no matter how small, as it could harm the resonance of the box. The final polishing arrives with sandpaper cloths of different grain sizes, both on the surface and on the edges of the lids that protrude from the band. "Well, I already have another operation done." Our friend the luthier is going to start making the violin handle. To do this, use a block of dry maple wood. With the appropriate templates, transfer to each of the faces the shape they should have.Then, with the band saw, he roughs the block, removing as much wood as possible, until leaving an outline of the piece.With the Ramón file, he goes over the roughing of the piece. to mark with the templates the volumes of the neck If the process of making the violin case has been slow, expensive and meticulous in its details, it is no less so that of the manufacture of the neck. This piece must be completely symmetrical and the luthier must adjust the templates on the previously marked central axes. "Very focused because the fingerboard is made of, ebony precisely, so that it comes completely straight once it has been finished and glued." To lower the wood and give the handle a baroque shape, this craftsman uses different saws. The file and the blade are used to refine the surface. With the stroke of a chisel and with that skill and good hand that master carvers show off, Ramón continues with precision the markings of the pegbox And finally the volute of the handle. Saw, files, gouge, chisels, sandpaper ... A combination of small tools to get the proper shape. Then, with the conical mandrel, the holes will take the shape of the pins. The handle is already finished. The beater is a piece of ebony wood that is used to establish the positions of the violin, and go from the lowest note to the highest. Alternating the blade and the sandpaper, Ramón gives it the concave shape at one of its ends, which is the bridge of the beater. "I'm adjusting the piece." "It has to be very well adjusted." "Now I'm just going to put two droplets of glue here so that it can hold to fit the violin well because then I have to take it out again." Ramón makes a temporary gluing of the beater on the handle, to check these two pieces with the acoustic box and give the necessary adjustments before the final casting When the pieces are adjusted, the luthier definitively glues the handle to the acoustic box The violin already It is complete now, all that remains is to varnish it before assembling the strings. This process is very delicate as it also influences the quality of the sound. There are many layers of resins and special varnishes that Ramón applies to the wood. "Each luthier more or less is going to make his shape, I give about 10 layers of varnish." Each coat of varnish needs 24 hours to dry before applying the next. Every day Ramón gives a new varnish all over the violin. In almost all the processes of making a violin, there is a waiting time either for the glue or the varnish to dry, for this reason, normally, Ramón always carries three or four violins in the process of construction. "Once there are already some layers given, then you have to pass it a very fine sandpaper and polish it well polished." With a very fine-grained sandpaper, the luthier polishes the varnish to remove the tiny scratches that may have been left by the brush, with a rag of thread impregnated in vaseline and very fine pumice powder , our friend Ramón polishes the entire surface of the instrument, it is the final finish. "I'm finishing polishing it and then passing another cloth and also quite weak and that to finish removing the petroleum jelly that is put on and it will be finished." With this last phase of polishing, the violin must have a perfect sound, but to check it, the strings will have to be assembled. But first, Ramón must glue the beater that he had built with ebony wood and that fitted perfectly to the set.Then he places the pegs smearing them with soda soap , which facilitates their movement on the pegbox. To be able to resist the tension of the strings, the pegs must be made with a strong wood: palo santo or ebony The bridge is a small piece that serves to hold the strings this also has to be made of a resistant wood such as maple or banana, since when the violin is tuned its strings make a force of 40 kilos. As all the great master luthiers in history have done, our friend the craftsman prints his mark on the interior and on the bridge of each of the instruments that he manufactures under the name of Raymundus Oliveras. The time has come to mount and tighten the strings, their manufacture is also handmade since they are made with animal guts wrapped with a very fine thread of gold, silver or aluminum. Although the strings are already well placed and tested, the violin lacks the soul of a small cylindrical piece of fir wood. "It is very delicate and you have to put it very well, so that the instrument can answer everything because this box can." The harmonic bar serves to give strength to the strings of the low notes the sun and the D, for its part the soul reinforces the high notes of the violin in the and he my. Once the soul is glued, it is time to tune the violin to check the sound. "It's already fine-tuned and finished." "Another violin is born." The final test of each of the violins that Ramón Oliveras makes is made by his friend Joan Daró, a demanding and sensitive violinist who knows how to value a job well done. "Gentlemen, this is a work of art, that speaks, that cries, that sings ..."
