The Quartet of Peace: Sound holes and bass bar ..

The sound holes or F holes are in some ways the stamp of individuality of an instrument's character and each violin maker has his own unique design.

The shape and positioning of the sound holes plays a crucial role in the tone of the instrument and even a minor variation can greatly effect the sound. The most important aspect of this being the distance between the sound holes at the bridge - if too wide then the wood will be too flexible if too close too stiff. Considering that most of the sound seems to be generated by the movement of the front in this area it is desirable to have the correct balance between stiffness and flexibility.

From a visual point of view one flutes the outside wing of the sound hole which in some ways give an appearance of the f hole almost 'growing out' of the wood instead of appearing as though it was placed on top. This fluting is done with a gouge and then a scraper.

The sound holes are sawn out using a very fine fret saw and then cut to the line with a sharp and long pointed knife.

The bass bar is an oblong piece of spruce, fixed lengthwise inside the front of a violin running in the same direction with the strings, below the lowest string, and acting as a beam to strengthen the front against the pressure of the left foot of the bridge, as the sound-post does against that of the right foot.

One carefully shapes the bass bar to fit perfectly against the front using chisels. Once glued in the bass bar is shaped using small thumb planes and finished with sand paper. When doing this shaping one flexes the front to see once again that it has enough flexibility but at the same time giving optimal strength. Each violin maker has his own ideas of where to leave the wood thick or thin in the bar but owing to my arching height and thicknessing methods I tend to leave the bar fairly high at the ends and of an average height in the middle.