Welcome!
The purpose of this guide is to give basic information about violin making. The aspiring violin maker will have the opportunity to build a full size instrument from start to finish with the help of step by step tutorials accompanied by drawn images.
To make the best of the electronic publication, all the images are in vector graphic format SVG, drawn to exact real world dimensions. At every step of your building, you can print out the plans and drawings and use them in direct comparison with what you have at hand. The SVG is supported by most modern browsers and editable by the free Inkscape. To download a version used on this website go to:
Inkscape-0.48.5-1-win32.exe For offline viewing, you can now download the whole site as a
PDF file.
Also, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the authors of the exquisite publication named The art of violin making, which served as a source of information without which this site would have never been possible.
Vojtěch Blahout
Frequently asked questions
Q> I have a question, where do I get an answer?
A> If your question or a comment is about a section of the manual, please feel free to post a comment on the appropriate page. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
Q> The printouts seem smaller/larger than what they ought to be.
A> After printing you always need to compare the prints with the dimensions mentioned in the text to make sure you have printed to correct size. You may need to resize the drawings to specs as Inkscape no longer draws the files to the correct sizes. Make sure you click the "lock" icon to keep the original aspect ratio while resizing and you should be fine.
Q> I want to use the images on this site in my own project, presentation...
A> By all means, use whatever you need, but please consider linking back here or using any other suitable way to acknowledge the source. You can edit the images in Inkscape.
Q> I see no images.
A> If you are having problems viewing the plans, click
caniuse.com/svg to see whether your browser is supported.