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Prime Times Weekly feature of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon Retired chemist Bill Stanley of Carmel, Calif., combines a love of wood and music to teach violin and viola-making to people searching for... A life of Harmony AP photos Bill Stanley, 83, plays one of his handmade violins in the resident's workshop at Carmel Valley Manor, Calif.. as Karen Hiles, 22, works with an electric chisel on a viola she is crafting under his direction. Hiles was able to make her instrument for $300 with Stanley's help. A comparable new one would cost $3,000. By JENNIFER KLEIN The Associated Press CARMEL VALLEY, Calif . -- Mention music or woodworking to Bill Stanley and his ears perk up. The 83-year-old retired chemist is as knowledgeable about wood and carving techniques as he is about Beethoven and Brahms. His passions intersect when he's building yet another string instrument. He's built 46 instruments and is now helping Karen Hiles, a 22-year-old recent college graduate, build a viola in the residents' workshop at Carmel Valley Manor. "He has talent that starts in his toes and comes out his fingers," said Gertrude Clawson, a fellow Carmel Valley Manor resident. Bill Stanley works on the neck of one of his violins. He has made 46 instruments since he retired in 1976. He made his first violin for his wife. Stanley was born in China to missionary parents. He started playing the violin when he was 10. He's played violin and viola in numerous community orchestras and chamber music groups, including the Monterey Peninsula College String Orchestra class, where he and his wife, Marie, still play. Hiles met Stanley through MPC class and learned that he had helped four other orchestra members build their instruments. Hiles, who has a bachelor's degree in music and English, has played the piano since she was 4, and the violin since age 10. In September, she took up the viola, which is larger and lower in pitch than the violin. She currently rents an instrument but wants a viola of her own. She approached Stanley about helping her build one. Instead of paying as much as $3,000 for a new instrument, Hiles had to pay only about $300, which covered the cost of the wood. Since she never worked with wood before, she is learning the technique as she goes along. "I'll finally have an instrument that I built myself, which not many people can say," Hiles said. Stanley first became interested in building instruments after he retired in 1976. He read all the books he could find, poring over directions, diagrams and theories about violin-making. Two years later, he finished his first violin -- which he built for his wife, who at the time did not know how to play. On the scroll of the violin, he carved the head of a scowling Beethoven because he did not yet know how to carve the traditional scroll top. "I told my wife (Beethoven) would smile as soon as she learned vibrato," Stanley said. Stanley has already carved Mozart into the back of the neck of Hiles' viola because that's her favorite composer. The two have been working on her viola for a few months; it's about 75 percent complete. Now they're working on the back, carefully using a power chisel and tiny thumb-sized planes to get the wood to the proper thickness. If the wood is too thin or too thick, the tone will be off. Each section of the viola is measured to a precise thousandth of an inch. "This makes it very complex to know what kind of instrument you're going to end up with," Stanley said. "You don't know what you're going to get until it comes out of the oven." It will take about 250 hours to build the viola. Without the power tools and electric saws, it would take more than twice as long. One of Stanley's former students, Jesse Mashmaier of Salinas, did all of his carving by hand. Mashmaier is now in violin school in Parma, Italy. Stanley became interested in woodcarving through his father, who learned from a Swiss woodcarver while in high school. During Stanley's junior year at the North China American School near Beijing, the principal asked him to carve a memorial fireplace. The principal knew Stanley's father was a good woodcarver and told him to have his father's help. "During Easter vacation I carved five panels of silly things, and then I was hooked," Stanley said. Nowadays, Stanley experiments with wood types and varnishes. He built the back of one instrument from a plank of Honduras mahogany. The wood is rare because the one-of-a-kind grain resembles a tortoise shell. The father of one of his students paid $5,000 for the mahogany plank and had it cut in two: half for Stanley's violin and the other half for the student. Stanley also repairs string instruments for local elementary school students. Snapped violin necks, damaged cellos and broken violas get fixed in his shop. Stanley said he enjoys doing the repairs because it gives him another excuse to spend time doing what he loves. It also helps bring the world of music to a new generation of children. "The instruments need to be played," he said. Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA