It should all fit together again, this time for real. The nut and the saddle are as they should, the fingerboard has been cleaned from varnish and polished, the bridge has it's little details and of course the cello is varnished. Last time when I had setup the cello I somehow got my ratios mixed up. I had made the string "nut to bridge" length 5x the "bridge to tailpiece" length. It should have been 6x. This creates the correct difference in the resonance frequencies of those pieces of string. The only thing I can adjust is the tailpiece so I brought the tailpiece closer to the bridge. The nut to bridge distance is 600 mm and the "bridge to tailpiece" length is 100 mm more or less.

So the cello is (almost) finished!!! I say almost because the sound post position could still be optimised, the pegs are too long and the wolf sound eliminator is missing. But I do not plan to do any of that on my own.

What a journey it has been. It started 16 months ago when I loaned the first books from the libraries and started to look for information, mostly videos, online. The build really started only in the spring of this year. I have learned a lot and done something I never thought I would do. It has also been interesting to see how everybody has been very skeptical to begin with but have slowly started to see that it is going to be not only something but an actual instrument. I am very happy with the result so far and I hope any possible issues with the sound can be fixed by tweaking the set up.

I did various small things today.

First I cleaned up all the ebony parts from varnish. I started with a scraper, then used some sandpaper up to 2000 grit with some oil to get a really nice surface. I did that for the saddle and the fingerboard.

Secondly I worked on the bridge. The height, thickness etc. are already finished. Maybe some work needs to be done if the cello doesn't sound right or is not good for Elias to play. In stead, I worked on the details. Some of the edges are chamfered and refined. One also tries to remove as much extra material as possible to reduce the weight and allow the bridge to vibrate more freely. Strobel in his book shows where to  remove material and chamfer the bridge. I also found a really good post by Sally Mullikin on the topic, trianglestrings.com/newcellobridge. I really liked the way the width of the chamfer changes in some parts and tried to do that. I will not attempt to get the "kneecaps" as refined as she's done though. Something again for the next cello. The chamfers are quite subtle. In the photo below I have done the right side of the bridge. Not sure if you can make any sense of that. Check Sally's page for more details.

After having created the blending, I varnished the neck with the provided "Giffpolitur farblos". I think it is just  pure shellack in some alcohol. Before finishing the neck I was reading in some forums that one often leaves the neck untreated to leave it smoother and more slippery which makes it easier to play. Some say that a French polish or shellack may be used. Since the set  Have includes this grip polish, I think it is exactly the French polish that some use. It's really quite clear. Maybe I should have stained the neck before hand as the colour wasn't quite even. Oh well, something to do differently in the next one.

The neck still needs a finish. I faded out the earlier varnishing first with a scraper and then with some sandpaper . It was surprisingly difficult to get a nice long smooth transition. So I stopped trying. The varnish for the neck also has a little colour so I hope that improve the blend. Maybe the spirit will also help there.

After the fingerboard I glued the nut on. I reduced it's height a little as the strings were too far from the fingerboard. That means that the player needs to push the strings stronger and further than necessary to get a good clean sound from the cello.

Time to put it all together again. First ip is the true fingerboard. During the varnishing a false fingerboard was glued on. I cleaned up both the neck and the fingerboard glueing surface an glued the two together using some thin glue. The fingerboard might have to come again at some point so the joint shouldn't be too strong. In principle I could also have glued on the upper nut but I thought I'l leave it for later in order not to mess up anything.

Two weeks has gone and the last coat of varnish has dried the minimum recommended time! So I can start polishing. The final polishing is also done with rottenstone but this time using oil instead of water. I went through the whole instrument every once in a while adding some oil and rottenstone to a linen cloth. The polishing somewhat reduces the glassy shine of the varnish to a nice sheen.

Next I should re-glue the fingerboard in place and work on the varnishing of the neck I need to fade out the varnish before applying the finish there.

My daughter has been in need of a night table for a while now. As I need to wait for the varnishing to dry on the cello I decided to tackle the night table now. I had many ideas in my mind when I accidentally came by furniture made by Seth Rolland. It was actually the video below by Fine Woodworking that introduced me to Seth. Some of the furniture is made out of one piece of wood with clever slicing to allow it to open up in a shape he wants.

I used maple for the tabletop and ash for the legs. Each leg is a single piece of wood with slice cuts to allow the top of the leg to fan out and provide a very strong joint for each leg. I'm pretty happy with the result. Some of the joints could be tighter but it looks good as it so I didn't start fixing them.

I painted the edges of the ff holes and the pegbox black. I think it looks really nice and gives a finished look to the instrument. While reading about this learned that doing this isn't as standard as I had thought. Some say that painting them black like this makes the instrument look cheap. One of these days I would like to have a really good look at some instruments by good luthiers. I haven't seen all that many cellos until now. I have now mostly used my sons current cello as an example but for the next one I would like to have a nicer cello to take inspiration from.

The surface looks good everywhere, my accidental touch left no trace. 10 layers of varnish will do! Now I should wait a couple of weeks to allow the varnish to harden before the final polishing can be done. That will be difficult.