Phonograph Violin Project (Stroh Violin)

[Curt A]

My "Stroh Violin" project was started several months ago. For years I have wanted to acquire an original Stroh Violin, but since the price for a good original exceeds $1,000, I couldn't rationalize purchasing one just for display. When I was young, I played violin but unfortunately did not continue with it, so I have remained obsessed for years. After starting my phonograph collection, I realized that this instrument was a close relative of early phonographs and was used in the acoustic recording process for early records and cylinders.

First a little background from Wikipedia:
Stroh violin, or Stroviols, is a trade name for a horn-violin (Romanian: Vioara cu goarnă), or violinophone—a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an electrical engineer in London, who patented it. On 4 May 1899.

Stroh violins are much louder than a standard wooden violin, and its directional projection of sound made it particularly useful in the early days of phonographic recording. Since regular violins recorded weakly with the old acoustic-mechanical recording method, Stroh violins were common in recording studios, but became rarer after record companies switched to the new electric microphone recording technology in the second half of the 1920s. The Stroh produces significantly more volume, and it has a surprisingly good tone, nearly comparable to that of a standard violin. On early records the violin can almost be recognized by its thin whining tone. The Stroh violin successfully replaced that limitation with a full, nearly accurate violin sound.

Now, on to my project. I started by collecting odd parts with an idea of someday building one. First, I found a generic reproducer that seemed to be the right proportions for my project. Next, I found a trumpet horn that had been cut down and used for a phonograph horn (I hated the idea of taking a perfectly good instrument and destroying it), so that was a start. I wondered about what type of wood to use, but the answer became apparent when I found an Edison DD console machine which had been gutted and discarded - 100 year old Edison mahogany. The next part was a little harder to find, but doing a search on eBay for broken violin brought up just the right candidate for recycling. I needed the original neck and scroll along with the other parts like tailpiece, adjustable tuners, etc.

I started drawing designs for the body of the violin and made a template of the approx shape I wanted... From there it was cutting pieces from the Edison cabinet and gluing them to make the correct size to cut on my band saw. Finally, I could see that it might actually come together in a logical way... Whenever I do projects from scratch, I am constantly thinking ahead to see what might foul me up at a later point. So, I started by cutting and shaping the body, then trying to determine the best way to install the reproducer and connect the horn to the whole thing, while keeping in mind the correct angle necessary to align the donor violin neck to make the strings align properly with the bridge. The other problem was figuring out how to actually attach the bridge to the reproducer, allowing enough movement to avoid dampening the vibrations from the strings to the reproducer, while maximizing the the vibrations to the needle bar...

Anyway, here is my progress so far...

[Henry]

Very impressive, Curt! I love the buffalo nickel. Expert craftsmanship. Can't wait to hear it in action.

Of course, you know that making it is the "easy" part. Playing it is the killer!

[edisonphonoworks]

Very nice! I love seeing old time recording equipment come to life, even the special instruments. I would love to do recording tests.

[estott]

Nice!! One suggestion- if you can get a horn spun out of aluminum your arm will thank you.

[Phonofreak]

Curt, That is an awesome project. I can't wait to see the finished product and hear it play.
Harvey Kravitz

[Curt A]

Nice!! One suggestion- if you can get a horn spun out of aluminum your arm will thank you.

I seriously tried to find a spun aluminum horn, but they are not readily available or reasonably priced for a project like this. Strangely, the brass trumpet is fairly lightweight and the well dried mahogany is very light...

[Curt A]

I have the neck and scroll attached and am in the process of staining the entire piece. Because of the differences in the wood, along with some epoxy filler, I decided to use a mahogany lacquer based toner. Normal wood stain will not take to the epoxy filler and would not blend the light wood of the original neck with the mahogany body... I would have preferred to use stain, because the toner tends to cover the wood grain, but you have to make the best choice for each project.