The image for today is of me working on the ribs for my first violin. It was taken in my bedsit flat at 5 Tredegar Terrace in the Mile End section of East London. The house was divided into three flats. There was only one toilet around at the back of the house, and the plumbing was minimal. Bathing was done at the public baths around on Mile End Road. The rent was £5 per week, paid in cash on Friday to the landlord, who came by personally to collect.
At the LCF, we were not taught how to use a mold to form ribs, but rather, a construction method where the ribs were built onto a plywood board. The board was first flattened with a hand plane, and the rib and plate outlines were drawn onto the board. Then, the blocks were glued on in their respective places. Blocks were significant at the school. In fact, the first task we were given was to make a perfect cube using only a saw, file, and square. The preferred material was willow cut from old cricket bats, many of which were in the workshop. That willow was extraordinary, tightly grained with a creamy texture that would cut in any direction. Wood like that is truly no longer available. The blocks were shaped with gouges for the corners and chisels for the upper and lower blocks. The trick was to remove the excess wood without cutting into the board, which would remove the pencil rib line. Keeping the faces smooth and square was challenging. This method did not call for the C linings to be inset into the corner blocks; instead, they simply abutted the block. It is a silly method for rib construction, and I don't know where it came from or how widely it was used in the English tradition. The only advantage I found was that it had a built-in failsafe for obtaining a flat surface. It was only possible to get the ribs flat against the board if all block surfaces were perfectly square and the rib edges perfectly straight. Providing, of course, you got the board perfectly flat at the start.