Emil Lupač

"The same thing was done with the top. The only difference was that on the top plate, there had to be drawn the f-holes. When it was done, the f shapes were drawn on, the f-holes, those were cut out with a flake saw and hand cut. And finally, the rib was made. That is, it was the bass beam that held one side of the board and the other side, as the foot was up, the grasshopper, so that one grasshopper was on that bass beam and the other bridge was near the inside, that was the soundpost of the instrument. And then, with that soundpost, it was all finished according to how it sounded. If it was too strong down there, you had to turn it down. You would move the soundpost just a bit, and you wouldn't believe the effect it had on the sound! Either the top strings went up in pitch, or the bottom strings went up in pitch. And now it had to be finished so it would all match. So that the lows didn't stand out and the highs weren't wrong. And that was the skill of the violin maker, how he tuned it."

"So you want to know how the instruments will stand up. That is, I get the material, plane it on a planer to make the bottom flat, draw the model, and cut it out on a track saw. We used to have to cut it with a flake saw because we didn't have a track saw, and when this was done, you took a chisel, deburred it, the vault stayed 15-16mm high in the middle, and it was 2-4mm to the edges. Once it was hollowed out, you took a planer, planed it out, and when it was a little bit clean, you scraped the rest of it out with a metal scraper. This was sheet metal, ground on one side, and then wrapped around with a kind of wrapper, a zigzag. So that it would scrape nicely, the plate was bent and scraped and cleaned. That was on the inside. Same thing on the top. Hollow it out, plane it, and make a nice little gouge with a chisel to make it nice and smooth. It was all done by hand. And finally, it was scraped again, cleaned, and the bottom plate was finished."