Vacation works

In the cottage, in the middle of the vacation, we find the old book press and the wannabe luthier eager for some action. I've shown this before but here's a pic of a resonator skeleton coming together. 

Then I decided to finish the mahogany soprano I've been busy with, you know the one with the oil finish. 

I started out by shaping the violin tuning pegs in my peg shaper, from Juzek tools and bought from www.metmusic.com, which is a very good webshop for parts and tools. I only recently mastered the tool but now I won't install tuners without it. 

Then reaming out the holes to fit the tuners. I chose to have the C- and E-string tuners a bit further in, it makes sense when you see it. 

When all tuners are seated I cut them off from the front with a spacer board. Note the piece of leather that catches the saw instead of my thumb doing it. 

Of course a back saw like this one isn't great for flush cuts but I brought a minimium set of tools out here. And it worked well enough. 

Then I round over the ends of each tuner. This can be done with a file but I didn't bring a file so I carved them. Files are boring as well, don't you agree?

Then some holes and strings and what do you know, it's done. Hard on the heels of number 1; number 29; number 84 and a few others made from this very special wood it already sounds great. 

As a side note, when I tuned it I set the A-string at exactly 440 Hz. By ear, and that's a first for me.