Mark Williams’ electric violin, which he has been building over the past few months, is nearly complete. Other than the neck and a few other items, the whole instrument has been scratch built, mostly at the Boston Fab Lab. He has a nice gallery of photos detailing the build.
I’m almost finished painting it, and I just string it all up for the first time since the project exposition to test out the new pickup magnets. It works GREAT! So amazing to play something I’ve built from the ground up. Just have to finish the fingerboard and bridge and then wait for the paint to finish curing so I can buff and polish it.
Most of the parts were designed in Open Office and cut on the lasercutter or Shopbot. To make his pickups, he created a magnet wire winder from lego parts and bench power supply.
Mark is a student at RIT and has been a youth leader in the Learn 2 Teach/Teach 2 Learn program operated out of the South End Technology Center with the help of the MIT Media Lab.
ADVERTISEMENT
