DIY travel violin?

(*) I don't fear damage only up to a point. I've had my share of damaged and delayed check-in baggage over the years.

Trevor, I will do some more googling on TheSession; the first few queries didn't yield much.

Suppose that I go for a VSO-based solution. Would it be impossible to reach my practice goals on one? I've never played on one.

The link in the post is dead, but it moved here: http://larkinam.com/MOBViolins.html scroll down a bit to "kit violin" and "Classic Walking Cane Fiddle". The latter is in a price range that I could consider. Shipped from the US though, "call for charges".

(http://imgur.com/e9oBEzr )

I've still two weeks before I'm going on holiday. Obviously, the sound is quite weird now (the low tones sound like with a metal practice mute; the higher tones are rather screechy). What I hadn't expected is that the instrument transmits strong, distracting vibrations to my jaw and chest.

I think that I will replace what's left of the body of the VSO by a stick of solid wood, for stiffness (right now it's nearly impossible to tune) and to reduce those vibrations.

By the way, regarding the VSO: I had expected worse after all the horror stories about VSOs. Yes, the materials were not of very high quality (painted fingerboard, no purfling, synthetic varnish, sloppy workmanship all over the place) and the sound was rather tinny. But I could tune and play it and and the distance between strings and fingerboard was OK. I think the main reason not to get an instrument like this is that the cost is rather out of proportion to the cost of taking lessons (25 euro for 30-minute lessons is the going rate here).

I think your travel violin is pretty cool. I was hoping there would be something like this as an electric--probably even lighter than some of the electrics. I'm curious if you can find something to fill it with to make it more even.

If you do that, you also might want make a hole in the side for soundpost access (if you intend to use one, I'm not sure it would matter in this case).

In case embedding does not work: http://imgur.com/xmrUsLQ .

I followed David Burgess's advice of the flat sides (epoxy glued) and hole for the soundpost. In the process, the distance between strings and fingerboard increased, so I had to file down the bridge quite a bit, as I didn't like the alternative of breaking up the glue bonds and re-gluing the thing.

The side panels are made of plywood (3 mm thickness, unlabeled, likely Gaboon/Okoume) with a finish of water-based brown wood stain. For transport, I use a block of wood to stabilize the bridge and a cardboard sleeve to protect the pegs. The blue violin case on the photos is for scale.

The attachment of the shoulder rest: initially, I thought of modifying the shoulder rest. Then, I figured out that a plate of plywood and a bit of velcro are much easier and allow swapping one shoulder rest for another. The plywood plate has the width of a 3/4 violin (I figured that I'd adjust the cheap SR that came with the VSO to its minimum width, to save space.)

Sound quality: well, of course, it doesn't sound like a high-end violin. In particular, most of the low frequencies are gone. My clip-on tuner cannot recognize tones on the G-string anymore. (My phone app, "Pano tuner", still works, though.) But it's good enough for practicing; mission accomplished.

Lessons learned, in case I ever do this again:

* Make the initial two saw cuts straight. That makes it way easier to glue on a side panel.

* I'd make the SR interface plate in 4/4 size, not 3/4. All I save is 15 mm of plywood and now it's a hassle to use my regular SR.

* Pay more attention to the distance between fingerboard and belly.

I needed a few more tools than I planned: saw, glue clamps, jigsaw, rasp, file, sandpaper, paintbrush, screwdrivers, paintbrush, chisel. I didn't use plyers. :-)