HOWTO make a scratch-built carbon-fiber violin


Karen sez, "Instructables user AussieCFViolin has rigged up a carbon fiber violin. This tutorial is an early entry in Instructables' ShopBot Challenge, which is accepting all sorts of creative projects for the chance to win an their own ShopBot. This contest has only been running for a week, and has already seen a lot of fantastic entries."

I used the infusion method of carbon fibre making , were you lay all your layers up dry and vacuum bag it , once the vacuum is over 25hg (-12psi) you open the tap to the resin , and the vacuum pulls the resin into the carbon fibre fabric , the laying up of the rib mould took me 5 hours each side to get the fabric to sit in the right position , very fiddly ( pardon the pun) .

The gluing jig was made from MDF with 10mm cup heads sticking through , designed to allow side ways positioning of the rib and neck parts , and the holding down clamps for the top and bottom , the centre part of the jig was removed to glue the top on, with the 4 hour set time of the resin ,its important to keep it all firmly heard in position.

The cutting and shaping of the f holes is another reason they call them fiddles , carbon fibre is a bugger to cut , found that if you submerge the carbon fibre in water and use a Flexi Drive bit holder on a Dremmel, it keeps every thing cold , and produces no dust , just ware a rain coat

A carbon fibre violin i made from scratch

(Thanks, Karen!)