Uploaded September 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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For the next few months, I'll be living in London. The thing about taking long trips is that at some point you start to miss your physical instruments. In particular, I found myself missing the violin I had to leave back in Philadelphia. The solution? My solution was to build a new violin right here in my Airbnb!

PROJECT NOTES

Here are the things that went well:

- I made a playable violin
- It turns out ukulele machine heads really well with violin strings
- It turns out that a violin neck doesn't need to be rounded in order to be playable
- I'm very happy with all of the hardware I ordered, including the cheap bow which was much better than expected

Here are the things that I would do differently:

- The wood I choose is too thick (6mm). Also: even though it's hardwood, I don't know exactly what wood it is. If I had it to do over, I would make sure to get thin pieces of spruce.
- I designed the neck to be exactly parallel with the body of the instrument. I didn't expect how much the tension of the strings would change the position of the neck. I ended up making the bridge much lower than I otherwise would have to compensate
- The hole I drilled for the endpin / button at the bottom was too big and I ended up having to glue

Here's a list of all of the parts I ordered:

- Violin Fingerboard (£6.41): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07C13KZ7S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- Andoer® 4/4 Violin Accessory Kit (£8.50): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00W50O1QM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- Adagio Pro - Violin Strings (£6.99): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LZINXN8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- Hidersine Teller Violin Bridge (£5.68): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005JE1PCE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- BQLZR Machine Head Tuners For Ukulele (£5.17): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00EQ23XMK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

- Rosin (£2.75): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00B7J6DLI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- Theodore 4/4 Standard Violin Bow (£9.95): amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B072XWXY2Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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