Violin shoulder rest 3d printed
In order to better support my violin I decided to go for a custom solution on my 3d printer using the components from my old "Wolf" shoulder rest. The wolf support is around 25 years old and today's tech is much better suited for this job - is what I'm thinking. A bit of 3d modelling and gluing pieces together is hopefully going to improve my playing and my sound! :))
Hello everyone! :))
Here is yet another blog post, this time with a musical note ;) If you know my Facebook feed, you will undoubtedly have noticed that I try playing the violin. I play some etudes by Mazas, Kayser of Dancla and try myself at a performance piece once in a while by among others Wieniawsky, Bach and currently Mendelssohn. Personally I think playing the violin helps checking your mental state as well as you physical, it is fun and challenging and figuring out strategies for creating the best sound and practicing the moves is one of my favourite ways to spend my time.
In order to hold the violin you want the instrument as fixated as can be between your shoulder and chin/yaw. To help with that there is a separate support piece that you slide on to the bottom of the violin, it's called the shoulder rest I believe. In my case the shoulder rest doesn't prevent the violin from sliding off my shoulder and this gives met left hand the extra challenge of having to give the violin the extra needed support. I needed a solution for this...
The shoulder rest is composed from the central piece that provides the shape and support on the shoulder. On each end is a configurable hold that you can slide on the bottom back part of the violin. I removed these end parts from my "Wolf" shoulder support so that the only thing I needed new was the central part.
I wanted the part as closely to fit my anatomy so unclothing my upper body I took the playing 'pose' and with my right hand created a scan of my left shoulder area with the app Scandy Pro on iOS (iPhone 12 pro). I created an extrusion of about 5mm thick and cleaned up the part by intersecting it with a smoothed shape that defined the contours of the shoulder part. The finished model was ready to be 3d printed. I used the free and open source software Cura to create the G-code for my printer.
When the print was done I assembled the end parts and the foam from my old shoulder rest. I have to say the fit is good at first try so my hopes are high that this shoulder rest will improve my playing!!
