Just fiddling around

Israel Hatcher's interest in making musical instruments began, as many good ideas do, after a really good kitchen party.

During the evening, his guitar was damaged in a fall.

The instrument is again in one piece, but on close inspection, it bears the battle scars of having been shattered.

"I put her all back together and I made a new back for her. After I got the guitar put back together, it sounded just as good," he said.

Pleased with the sound, and armed with the knowledge of how to do it, he decided to try his hand at making a fiddle.

His first fiddle was completed in October 1995. After that he made another, and another, until he had made 30 in total.

Most of his fiddles now line the walls in his basement rec room, along with a few guitars and mandolins. The fiddles that aren't in his basement are in the homes of a few friends and family.

He is currently working on his sixth mandolin. He has one for himself, but has given the rest to his grandkids. A new granddaughter means it's now time to make another.

"I just do it for a past time. I've had people by who want to buy them, but no. If I start selling them..." his voice trails off. "I give them to my buddies."

His friends, perhaps knowing his reluctance to sell them, often refuse to take them outright. Mr. Hatcher told the story of setting off for a friend's house with a fiddle and returning home later that night with a new accordion.

Mr. Hatcher likes light coloured finish on most of his instruments. He has stained a handful of them dark, but most have no stain at all - just a lacquer finish that shows off the wood's natural colour.

He generally uses spruce for the top and maple for the bodies. A few are made entirely of maple. He has made a few pine-top fiddles too.

"The back and the side really make no difference to the sound. It's the top that'll give you the sound," he said.

The wood for every instrument is harvested by Mr. Hatcher near his cabin at Garia Bay. Accessible only by boat, Garia Bay is an isolated inlet east of Rose Blanche known for its great salmon fishing.

For 22 years, Mr. Hatcher was a wildlife warden in the bay. He would spend most of the summer months at the provincial wildlife department's cabin, keeping an eye out for poachers.

"You wouldn't see a soul perhaps all week," he said. "At night time you'd settle down in the cabin, nothing else to do, all alone down there in one of those bays, and then you piddle around."

Piddling around might mean whittling the head of a fiddle, or making new bridges and pegs.

Now that he is retired, Mr. Hatcher spends summer months at his own cabin on an island in Garia Bay.

He has learned little secrets and tricks over the years on how to make instruments. For instance, he has found that when making the neck, it is best to glue several pieces of wood together before shaping the neck.

"If you put wood together with just one piece of board, nine chances out of ten it'll warp. If you laminate it - one grain is going against another - it won't warp."

While it would be easy enough to order pre-made parts for his instruments, Mr. Hatcher has made a habit of constructing just about every part himself. He whittles the fiddleheads and tuning pegs for each fiddle. He even makes the fret boards for his mandolins.

Most mandolin fret boards have mother-of-pearl inlay on the third, fifth, seventh, ninth and twelfth frets. Mr. Hatcher has found an ingenious substitute. He uses the imitation-mother-of-pearl material from snaps on work shirts.

He works at his own pace. He said he doesn't like to be rushed. It takes about two weeks straight to put a fiddle together, but he spreads this work out over months. It can take a day's work alone just to carve out a neck.

Although he has some 20 fiddles lining the rec-room wall, Mr. Hatcher has one favorite that he uses whenever he goes out to a kitchen party. He knows of a few more that stand out. He points at one in particular.

"That one sounds pretty good."

However, when pressed, he is unable to explain why his best sounding ones instruments stand out.

"When you're making a fiddle, you don't what you've got until after you put strings on her and tune her. That's how you know what you've got."

reporter@gulfnews.ca