They couldn't be more wrong.

"Making a violin is the last step in the craftsman line," said Robinson, describing his urge to stretch his whittling skills to their limits. "It's the ultimate experience in woodworking. There's not one straight line in a violin."

He was somehow born into it -- grandson of a man from Maine named Lute Robinson who dabbled in violin making, Robinson cut his craftsman teeth on blocks of wood in his father's work shop, developing a taste for sawdust and a way with sandpaper and chisel.

Robinson evolved into a masterful carpenter and cabinetmaker. But even in his construction work days, he was a sucker for the lilting staccato of classical music, in particular, from the Baroque period.

It was circa 1995 that he finally surrendered to the pull of the music, bought himself a book and tried to build his first violin.

"You get to a point when you realize you don't know what you need to know," said Robinson.

As his fate would have it, he saw a TV commercial for the Violin Craftsmanship Institute at University of New Hampshire, led by German master teacher Karl Roy. Robinson excelled, and eventually was recruited to teach classes there, as well.

Opening his own shop six years ago was part of his progression. He offers workshops twice a year -- from his shop in July, and in cooperation with another violin maker in Arizona, in January.

Cellist Gary Hodges, of Andover, is more than a customer. He was Robinson's violin teacher.

"At that time he was still a carpenter, and did some finish work for me. The next thing I knew, he had taken classes at UNH and was the head guy in the shop, under Karl Roy. The cello I own Jim finished in 2005; it's a beautiful instrument," said Hodges, who is principle cellist for the New Hampshire Philharmonic, and performs in local chamber groups including Artful Noise String Quartet.

"The thing about Jim is that he was already so skillful, that he just took to crafting violins and cellos. My cello is beautifully cut. It's something that takes most people years to master -- and a skill you never stop learning," Hodges said.

To that end, Robinson's summer challenge is crafting his first gamba, a bass viol from the Baroque period, using blueprints he purchased from a museum in England.

He has been studying the decorative scroll work and prepping himself for the task, which for him should come close to a spiritual experience.

"In the end, you spend all that time carving and fitting and then, you hold it in your hands and it plays music -- oh man, there's nothing like it," Robinson said.

Although the market for hand-crafted strings has been undercut by the import of instruments mass-produced in China, Robinson said there is no substitute for what he does.

"Perfection lies in the subtle imperfections. If it looks too perfect, something's been lost in translation," Robinson said. "The best way I can explain it is to say that a handmade violin is made for playability, rather than durability."

Although he's been known to negotiate, his instruments generally run $15,000 for a cello, $7,000 for a viola and $5,000 for a violin -- prices he considers comparatively reasonable for handcrafted pieces.

Between customers, Robinson gets lost in his workshop, where instruments in various stages of completion are stacked and strewn with an orderly chaos reminiscent of the dusty Disneyesque warmth of Geppetto's work space.

"It's all hocus-pocus. It seems like voodoo, but the wood has a frequency. Tap toning was always done by tapping on the wood and listening for how the wood wanted to sound. I use a computer to do it these days, and write the frequency on the label, which I put inside each finished instrument," Robinson said.

"Who knows, maybe in 100 years from now someone will take apart one of my instruments and find that my work is useful to them, somehow," Robinson said, twirling one of his finished violins gently in mid-air before hanging it back on a wire.

"It becomes a part of you, in the end. People say once you are in the violin world, you can't get back to what you did before," Robinson said. "You have to stay in it -- you can't not fall in love with the life. It's addicting."