All Activity

I have furniture, including chairs and bookshelves, made with Titebond 40+ years ago. No issues with creep or joint failure. That being said, I would not use it in neck joints that are under constant tension. That just begs for failure, whereas protein glues have a long history of success.

A bit of distortion is usual when taking the ribs hastily from an inside mould, and there's also some damage. Not as crooked as at many bob ribs IMO. The lower rib was probably divided during a repair, when there was "too much rib for too less plate width" due too shrinkage.

I agree with BF. Crooked corners and all. Workmanship looks typical.

The scroll is a bit awkward but matches in my eyes the body and could be well original.

Based on my direct experience using PVA glue is a monumental mistake. Myself and a couple of my colleagues bought around 1999-2000 some very nice factory violins supposedly made in Germany. Wonderful wood, wonderful dark red-brown varnish and tone wise, quite usable. But, over some 15 years ALL of them had the backs split and the necks moved due to PVA creep. I have also seen at least two violas made in Brazil I think by some famous viola maker, with the exact same problem. I took my violin back to Germany during a trip and was told by a reputable luthier that such defect can not be repaired economically. Nowadays, as I moonlight as a hotel manager I have ample opportunity to observe the long term creep of PVA in pieces of furniture, particularly disturbing in layered sections where further shrinking of the wood causes hard lines filled with dirt. After some enquires I found that there are industrial glues, waterproof and heat resistant which do not creep.

I'd be willing to bet that anything that you do to it yourself is going to make it look way worse than it does now. That's why a professional varnish job would cost $1000. I'd say it looks fine, and if you don't like the looks of it, get used to it, or buy a different instrument.

Myself and a small group of teachers are trying to educate our pupils to keep bridges upright, in proper position. It makes a good deal of tone and playability difference. However, it is often very hard, nay impossible, to shift the bridge backwards - cellos in particulars. Myself often resorted to the use of a tiny hammer . Could anybody with relevant experience describe the ( proper ) procedure ? Also, just in case anybody knows : what would be the ideal gap between string and fingerboard at the nut, particularly for smaller cellos : 1/2 and 1/4 ?

Yours is a very interesting question, but you are starting from a wrong premise: who made bad violins following "his ideas"? I followed "his ideas" and I made about 200 violins, violas and cellos, but no one of my old and new customers told me that my instruments were very bad. I had some problems at the very beginning because his book is containing some errors regarding the mould drawing (because a miscalculation regarding the golden ratio), and the varnish based on propolis. But this does not mean that he was wrong, because he was constantly working on the second edition of his book before dying. He knew that the book needed of a revision. As you can see in the attached picture, we have a sort of form that Sacconi got from a real and original instrument Stradivari 1722 Fuchs, and the writing says: "da correggere e vedere perché è stretta fatta dai filetti". That's to say that errors are part of the process of knowledge. Regarding the propolis varnish I have seen the instruments made by his students where the propolis varnish was applied with very good results, but above all it had very good oil varnishes like characteristics. That's to say that he was wrong with the propolis varnish because the analysis revealed oil and resins, but his observations on the original varnishes are still very useful to understand them. Maybe I can try again cooking propolis in the future and verify it again if it's possible to use it as a varnish. I'm studying the Sacconi's books since the year 1984 and I find something new every day, thanks to it I discovered the importance of Luca Pacioli, Giorgio Vasari and the painting tradition. Without him I would never have discovered Kircher, De Mayerne, Bonanni, and many other important things and wonderful men of the past, the cube of Metatron, just to say. Maybe my head is full of wrong "ideas" now, thanks to Sacconi.

I've been wondering the same thing. I exclude me from "we". * fill in your personal favorite tedious construction. I have seen no convincing argument against shortuts that are easy and look/work good, assuming the primary goal is to make stuff efficiently that looks/works good.

Probably best to revere Sacconi for his observations and take his conclusions with a grain of salt. I think of it a bit like comparing a restaurant review with my own experience. --CP

There's also the question of how much UV protection is created by the VB coating, and the orientation of the surfaces vs. time of day. If the violin is hung vertically all day, then the top of the scroll and the ribs on the top part of the upper bout would be getting the UV at the most intense time of day. I made an inclined motorized rotisserie to solve that issue. Just out of curiosity, I looked at the June UV index of a few places.

Because Sacconi wrote a book, and one many people own. This makes it common to parrot out bits from it, as though it is the pinnacle of violin making, which saves thinking for oneself, or arguing.

I thought it was UV light that does the tanning not oxygen, but I could be wrong. Probably a combination of the two.

Roger Hargrave, in his article about Del Gesù building methods on Biddulph's 2 Volume book about DG, mentions that probably all DG violins came from the same mould, and that the variations are due to alterations of the blocks (that were left proud to make a bigger violin) and in the overhang, in the case of the corners.

I'm sorry. I'll get back to fitting circles to the violin's shape.

An old way is the tangent method. It is easy to make a variety of shallowness. A bunch of these can be used to generate the entire violin shape which is an distraction and an entire waste of time.

My point is that earliest violin makers such as Amati didn't have to know how to do compass construction drawings. Later makers such as Stradivar or DG just traced the rib of an earlier violin to make their own mold patterns. If they wanted some other proportions they just moved half of the traced pattern around or sketched it a little differently as Stuart Pollens described.

I have a question. Why are we putting so much stock into the musings of Sacconi? I understand that he was very knowledgeable and influential, but he's also been wrong about a lot of things. And making a violin following his ideas almost always results in an instrument that is so very bad.

Nice lawn. I snipped this from google ai, how to construct a parabola with a compass and ruler/square: Method 1: Using Focus and Directrix Draw the directrix: Draw a straight line, this is your directrix. Locate the focus: Mark a point (the focus) not on the directrix. Find points on the parabola: For any point on the parabola, its distance to the focus must equal its perpendicular distance to the directrix. Draw a line perpendicular to the directrix passing through a point. Set your compass to the distance between that point on the directrix and the focus. With the compass centered on the focus, draw arcs intersecting the perpendicular line. These intersections are points on the parabola. Repeat: Repeat this process with several points to get a good curve. Draw the parabola: Connect the points to form the parabola. https://images.app.goo.gl/q1FnX5oh1LBd8vbM7

Even the top rib is one-piece...

Don't bother. Leave it how it is. The problem with refinishing is that every finish goes into the wood. Wood is not a perfect flat surface. So in order to fully remove the finish, you will have to remove some wood. When there is only 2.5mm of wood to begin with, it's a problem. Chemical stripping always makes a mess and pushes the dissolved varnish deeper into the wood, giving an ugly result (usually).

Unless I'm mistaken the process of tanning requires oxygen to occur, in which case the presence of a VB layer would significantly slow the colour change you're looking for.

Not in this period ...

Is that a one-piece lower rib? Isn't that a bit weird on a French violin?

Could be just distortion from a wide angle (phone) lens?