By Jenel Hunt
Cameron Smith was still a kid when he realised he didn’t just want to be able to play the violin – he wanted to make one of his own.
But with an instrument so intricate and exact, he was hardly going to be able to pick up the art of the craft from a couple of books or some YouTube videos. Was he?
Well, yes and no.
Cameron, who is about to start his third year at uni studying mechanical engineering, has just completed his first violin. And while books and videos might not be the optimal way of learning, he couldn’t sit at a master’s knee to learn the venerable craft. Master violin makers aren’t exactly thick on the ground in Stanthorpe.
His dream is that one day he can go to Cremona in Italy to become a student of one of the world’s most revered master violin makers. But in the meantime, he has had to make the best of limited options.
Cameron was homeschooled until his final couple of years of high school, and two Stanthorpe State High School teachers who had a big impact on him were Reuben Schmitt, a woodworks teacher, and Jono Bushby, a graphics teacher who taught him how to do technical drawings and the steps of going through the design process.
He told his teachers he played the violin and wanted to make his own someday.
“It was Mr Schmitt who suggested that I should probably dip my toe into this whole violin-making dream with a guitar-like object. He had a piece of figured mahogany that had been smashed so wasn’t much use to anyone else, so that’s what I started with. He thought a ukulele would be a good instrument to start with because it isn’t curved like a violin. Did you know the only part of the violin that isn’t curved is the little button at the bottom of the neck?”
So Cameron applied himself to technical drawings and practical techniques to make his very first instrument. He was just 16.
But because he was violin mad, he made sure the ukulele was tuned with the same string pitches as a violin – so it became a violinesque object, a ukulin!
“Looking back, it has many more crimes against instrument making than the violin does, but that’s all part of the learning process.”
Amazingly, YouTube was an incredible resource for learning the intricacies of some part of violin-making, with some luthiers sharing their knowledge in great detail.
But without doubt one of the best teachers he has had is a man he has never met. George Buchanan wrote a book, “The Making of Stringed Instruments: A Workshop Guide.” Cameron took the book out of the library so many times it might as well have had his name on it permanently. His mum Heather took pity on him and bought him the hard-cover tome. For Cameron, that book is in the category of Best Birthday Present Ever.
“I love it and I’ve read it to death,” he said, patting the red cover.
“There are other books. Books by people who assume you’ll start with exactly the right piece of very expensive wood; that you’ll never make a mistake. George Buchanan is a cabinetmaker who has learned the art of violin-making. So he has tips in the book that say if you can’t afford $10,000 worth of timber, use this instead. If you make this mistake here’s how you can fix it.”
So having shelved the idea of using European spruce for the front and European maple for the back, Cameron settled on sitka spruce and Australian red cedar (a relative of mahogany and quite commonly used in guitar-making).
It’s inspiring to see how a beautiful violin can be made from a couple of planks of timber, but the work that goes into it is mind boggling.
“I started bending the sides around a form. I had a piece of plywood and some big templates that I copied from a book and there I was, ready to start. I had a little gal pipe with blowtorch and water so that I could steam-bend the sides around the form. As I was working on it, the refrain kept going round and round in my head, ’Please don’t break, please don’t break.’
“I did have a couple of failures then eventually got on C-rib that fitted. Then eventually I had the whole rib garland done.”
So that was all the curvy bits on the sides mostly done. How about the front and back? Those bits are curved too. But there’s no steam involved. It’s more of a Michelangelo-type craft, chiselling out the shape from the block using lengthwise and crosswise templates to guide how much wood to take off from the highest part in the middle of the pieces.
Fitting the tiny inlay around the perimeter of the violin, front and back, is a masterpiece in patience.
“It’s not rocket science but it is fiddly. You have a tiny chisel and a tiny knife. Not all violins have the inlay – the cheap ones are just painted to look like inlay.”
But that wasn’t the most terrifying bit. The scariest part was cutting the f-holes – curvy cutouts on the front of the violin (on either side of the bridge) that help the instrument produce its sound and resonance.
“You have your heart in your mouth, hoping that your knife skills are good. Mine weren’t, so I went slowly. Very, very slowly,” Cameron said.
“The most challenging part was the scroll at the top of the violin. It’s the regal crowning bit of the instrument and I found it the hardest. You start with a big block on top of the neck and in the end you have a spiral shape that is very beautiful. But also kind of intimidating.”
Another person who was helpful in the journey was local guitar repairer and technician Bruce Jones, who loaned Cameron his nut files to make the little notches for the strings to sit in at the top of the neck and the bridge.
The tailpiece, pegs and bridge were purchased as blanks and then worked up.
“You need to carve away to get your radiuses and curves – the bridge and the fingerboard need to be worked to fit your instrument.”
He put eight coats of varnish on the instrument. It has to be the right kind of varnish – the stuff that’s used on furniture won’t work. The glue that’s used also has to be a special type. It’s hide glue which is reversible … as in, able to be unglued.
Knowing every millimetre of the instrument has made it a joy to play.
“It’s satisfying to me as a player that I have made my own instrument. I like the tone, but I also understand that it could be better if the sounding post and bridge were micro-adjusted. I’d take it to a luthier to get that done, though.“
Cameron entered his newly finished violin in the Stanthorpe Show and walked away with the woodwork open manual arts first prize and the title of grand champion manual arts. It was a good moment, but he was just as excited when he was talking about going to see his two school teachers and showing them his creation.
Is he completely happy with his accomplishment?
“Well, you see that little bit of varnish there? It’s not quite right. I’m proud of this violin, of course I am. I’ll be even more proud of violin two. But I can say this: I’ve made an entire violin, and I have realised that I really don’t know anything yet.“
