The Body

What effectively took the longest was the fact that I could not find a shape or form that I liked. I have looked a lot on the internet, but did not find anything I fancied. Most electric violins looked too much like a classical violin. Some other designs where very futuristic. Some looked very nice but were (far) beyond my woodworking skills. For example the Jensen violins. I have wasted a lot of wood on several designs but was never satisfied. I also did not have the right tools for some of the sawing I did. Now I am the proud owner of a bandsaw and can go a little further.

One of the things I constantly ran against was the neck angle. It should be something about 87 ° but I felt that it would pose a problem for me. Especially since a classic violin has the neck carved separately from the violin. It is attached at a certain point in the making of a violin. Some time ago I surfed into Vogelsangs Violin builders, and knew that was it. Why have an angle when you can lower the bridge? Now I knew I could make a body and neck out of one piece

When building a violin there are a quite a few measurements you have to bear in mind. A very detailed page with measurements can be found at Hans Johansson's website. For an electric violin it is far less. Here are a few:

End to neck: 360 MM
Neck(to nut): 130 MM
Nut: 7 mm
Pegbox:  depends on what kind and how many tuning keys you will use and how to place them
Bridge Placement: 330 mm from nut
Body thickness: 40 to 50 mm (depends on chinrest attachment mechanism)

click for large plan

I think there are just a few important ones here. It is the distance from the end to the bridge, the length of the total body and the neck. The bridge part of the body is 20 mm below the neck.
the body width is at least the width of the bridge, but preferably a bit wider, about 50 mm.

That is basically it, now for the building of the violin

six stringed
violin with
homemade
tailpiece