WINTHROP – The MT Bottle Co. redemption depot is cramped and the light is low. It’s cold with the garage door open all day, and a space heater next to the tiny work bench doesn’t help much.

But the conditions suit Steve Hodgkins just fine. For more than 10 years, he and his nephew, Jason Curtis, have been making violins, violas and dulcimers during the downtime between customers.

Running a hand plane across what will soon be the back of an upright bass – his first – Hodgkins says his modest workshop is enough to make great-sounding instruments.

“You could build them anywhere,” Hodgkins says. “Guarnerius built them in jail.”

Hodgkins, 65, is referring to the story of 18th-century violin-maker Joseph Guarnerius making several violins while in prison for murder, though historians say there’s no proof he went to prison, much less made violins there.

But Hodgkins, who has owned the MT Bottle Co. since 1986, will tell you he’s no Guarnerius. Hodgkins calls his instruments “rough.” He’s been making them that way since around 1995, when he and Curtis, now 30, made their first violins. Curtis’ violins have consistently improved, but Hodgkins calls himself a “gypsy maker.”

“I try not to measure anything,” Hodgkins says. “I try to look at something – say I want it that big – I try to make it that big.” His style has been working for him. Several fellow members of the Over the Hill Gang, with whom Hodgkins meets Tuesday nights to play country and bluegrass, play Hodgkins-made instruments.

He credits Larry Siegler, a well-known luthier in Vienna, Maine, as the person who got him started. Years ago, he took a violin to Siegler to have it modified so Hodgkins, who is left-handed, could play it. When he went back to Siegler looking for a left-handed viola, Siegler said, “Why don’t you make one?”

With some carpentry experience, Hodgkins set out to learn the trade. He collected books on making violins, which now lie in a stack in the MT Bottle workshop. He gathered all the tools he needed and set up shop, working just as he does now, whenever business was slow. Recalling that first violin, he says, “It was the ugliest thing in the world, but I still got it sounding all right.”

He says he only planned to make one. But when that was done, he found he liked making them as much as he liked playing them. Curtis got started soon after. They build the bodies, necks and scrolls, then order the pegs, tail piece and strings from International Violin Co.

They traded old instruments to Siegler for some tools – a band saw and a caliper, which measures the thickness of a piece of wood.

Hodgkins says Siegler has encouraged his style. “He said, ‘You’ve got a good line, so stick with what you do.'”

“He has had a lot of luck getting a good sound,” Siegler says. According to Siegler, the rough look of Hodgkins’ instruments comes from a lack of patience, not a lack of skill or knowledge.

Hodgkins has studied violin-making. He knows how different types of wood will make a violin sound. He knows how to get just the right shape for maximum amplification, and he has a reverence for the instrument.

“Nothing amplifies like a violin,” Hodgkins says. “Violins are louder than violas. They’re littler. It’s a magical, perfect size.”

Siegler, who has been repairing violins and other stringed instruments for 40 years, says there is an element of art to crafting and working on violins. To Hodgkins, who taught himself with books, it’s simply a trade.

“It’s a craft. Anybody can make a violin,” he says, likening it to knitting sweaters. “If you like making sweaters, you’d like making violins.”