Trapezoid cello

[John LaTorre]

Hi, all,

I recently came across a book called Making a simple violin and viola by Ronald Roberts. He'd built several violins and violas with trapezoidal soundboxes, based on some experimental work done by Savart about a century ago. He claims that the sounds are comparable to the conventional violin.

The advantages of the trapezoidal design, from a builder's standpoint, are no side bending and no need for a complicated mold, just a simple trapezoid frame.

That got me thinking about making a cello based on the same design as the viola but scaled up to 4/4 cello size. My thinking is that, while it may not have the volume of a conventional cello, it would be far less unwieldy, and it wouldn't be a problem to install some pickups to electificate it.

I intend to use an existing neck, fingerboard, and peg box from a scavenged cello, and copy the relevant measurements from another 4/4 cello on loan to me.

Has anybody on the forum done anything like this? (I already know about the "cigar box cello" YouTube video.) Your comments and suggestions are welcome.