Carving the volute

The back of the pegbox and scroll still looks rather plain, so I'll be sprucing it up a bit in this blog.
The first step is to get out my trusty compass once again. I use it to trace a line 1mm from the inside of the edge. This is my "do not cross" line, since I'll be chamferring that edge later in the process.
Next I come in with a medium-sized gouge and scoop out a trough following that line, and another following the centerline that I scribed earlier in the building process.
It's important while doing this to pay careful attention to the direction of the grain runout. If I don't, the grain will split and tear out on me. That would be a difficult mistake to hide at this point. So I come in towards the scroll at the heel end, away from the scroll at the midsection, and at the trough in between them, I scoop sideways, either towards or away from the centerline.
I'll continue a similar pattern all the way around to the throat of the scroll, leaving two troughs and a ridge between them. Then I get to come in with the same gouge, cutting roughly in the same directions, and remove that ridge from the center.
It looks good from a distance now, but it still requires a bit of polish. So I come in with a small scraper, shaped just for this task, and clean the bottoms of the troughs, creating a nice smooth curve along their cross-section, and sharp, crisp lines, straight along my centerline and edge lines.
Here's my scraper and me. Now I've got a good-looking scroll, lacking only the chamfers. So with a 6mm violin knife, I create an even chamfer, about a millimeter wide, along the entire edge of the scroll.Here's another large picture, because it can be difficult to see otherwise. But that's it! A quick blog for a time-consuming process. Next blog I'll showcase setting the neck on the instrument. Then just a few final touches before we get to finish it!