Simon M. Brown - Master Luthier

Simon M. Brown - Master Luthier Professional & Qualified Violin Maker and Restorer. New Instruments - Repairs - Restorations.

Getting pegs to fit well is always a job requiring a lot of patience; one of my tricks is to make a “dummy pegbox” which...
01/10/2020

Getting pegs to fit well is always a job requiring a lot of patience; one of my tricks is to make a “dummy pegbox” which allows me to finely adjust the peg shaper before too much wood has been removed from the peg.

I just made a trip to the Pigment Lab in Enmore. What a fantastic shop! I’ve been searching for a replacement yellow pig...
29/06/2020

I just made a trip to the Pigment Lab in Enmore. What a fantastic shop! I’ve been searching for a replacement yellow pigment for Windsor & Newtons Indian yellow for many years. The search may be over!

44 closing clamps
29/06/2020

44 closing clamps

Time to close up this cello!
29/06/2020

Time to close up this cello!

Fitting a sound post patch involves some of the mist exacting work a craftsperson can do; the patch “bed” is carved out ...
27/06/2020

Fitting a sound post patch involves some of the mist exacting work a craftsperson can do; the patch “bed” is carved out of the original wood almost all the way through to the varnish. Without the plaster cast made previously there would not be enough support for the very thin patch area which thins to half a millimeter at the centre!
Then a piece of new wood is fitted into that space. Both surfaces are a complex curve which is refined as much as possible to allow an exact fit. The final fitting is done by transferring chalk from one surface to the other to show the areas where there is a good fit. These areas are scraped hundredths of a millimeter at a time until there is a good fit over the whole patch. The whole process takes days. This exactness is crucial so that the patch marries with the original wood to ensure acoustic integrity of the back.

Just another day in the life of a violin maker! I was asked to value a chest of viols, made by German maker Ingo Muthesi...
25/06/2020

Just another day in the life of a violin maker! I was asked to value a chest of viols, made by German maker Ingo Muthesius . There is an interesting video of him on YouTube. The bass, tenor and two treble viols have a wonderful display of carved heads!

Repairing a crack near the sound post usually means making a plaster cast of the area where the crack is; this is a cell...
25/06/2020

Repairing a crack near the sound post usually means making a plaster cast of the area where the crack is; this is a cello circa 1890 with a crack in its back. Cardboard walls retain the plaster and a plywood base provides a level surface.

Glueing a cello crack: you just can’t have too many clamps!
09/06/2020

Glueing a cello crack: you just can’t have too many clamps!

Yet more peg bushings! Everything comes in threes! They are often made from maple but the English were in the habit of m...
26/05/2020

Yet more peg bushings! Everything comes in threes! They are often made from maple but the English were in the habit of making them from boxwood which is very dense and very suited to the purpose. I’ve been using French boxwood which I bought ten or fifteen years ago. It’s a delight to use.

This cello has a crack in the back caused by the sound post. These cracks need extensive work because simple gluing woul...
16/05/2020

This cello has a crack in the back caused by the sound post. These cracks need extensive work because simple gluing would fail because of the constant pressure from the sound post. I’ll be working on this for some weeks! The first step is to remove the back. Stay posted.

Chiselling out the mortise to refit a violin neck. The necks on violin family instruments are only glued in, and when th...
06/05/2020

Chiselling out the mortise to refit a violin neck. The necks on violin family instruments are only glued in, and when they come loose it is normally because either the join was not well fitted or the surfaces didn’t align well when it was glued. In this case it’s a violin circa 1900, probably German. These instruments were made in an early form of production line, and the neck joints would have been cut very quickly. This one had almost no surfaces which fitted well. It’s a testimony to the strength of hide glue that it took over 100 years for this joint to fail!!

Here’s another common cello problem: a warped bridge, this one’s on the extreme side!
29/04/2020

Here’s another common cello problem: a warped bridge, this one’s on the extreme side!

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North Shore
Sydney, NSW
2000

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