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The Luthier’s Bench straps work well. They are thinner than most straps which I think works well. I have used the Luthier’s Bench straps with my Gewa iron (for cello) and my custom violin/viola iron made by someone in school that was based on the Gewa with a slightly tighter curve. It’s a good combination but if I were buying now, I would probably get the Luthier’s Bench one. It’s hard in general to find something that does everything well. A side note: I believe Aehnelt used to make irons for Gewa. Not sure where I heard that info but it makes sense. Here’s a photo of the custom one just for my vanity sense.
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The Luthier’s Bench straps work well. They are thinner than most straps which I think works well. I have used the Luthier’s Bench straps with my Gewa iron (for cello) and my custom violin/viola iron made by someone in school that was based on the Gewa with a slightly tighter curve. It’s a good combination but if I were buying now, I would probably get the Luthier’s Bench one. It’s hard in general to find something that does everything well. A side note: I believe Aehnelt used to make irons for Gewa. Not sure where I heard that info but it makes sense. Here’s a photo of the custom one just for my vanity sense.
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The other day I was lucky enough to be taken on a guided tour of J & A Beare’s London “workshops”, more like the up-market medical consulting rooms just around the corner in Harley Street than the ex-butcher’s shop (?) they occupied a generation ago. We were treated to a demonstration of 4 instruments, 3 of them Strads of various periods and one a del Gesu. In the mystic fervour of the moment I thought I could just about make out the differences I was supposed to hear, but without prompting I never could have told them apart. Of course they all sounded great in the hands of an astounding (and genuinely modest) 16-year-old but I couldn’t rid my mind of the unasked questions – wouldn’t a good modern instrument in the same hands have sounded just as impressive, and how come Charles Beare famously couldn’t tell the sonic difference between his own Strad and a brand new violin by a maker of no great repute? Violins certainly sound different from one another, especially to the player, but doesn’t the scale go from 1 to 100 rather than 1 to 100,000 (multiply by 100 to get the price in quid)? Hasn’t violin worship achieved a similar status as all the great religions of the world, where progressively throughout the ages the nub of truth has been gilded in myth and sculpted into dogma and orthodoxy? The religious analogy seems apt from the top to the bottom of the business. In the height sit the holiest - the omniscient archangels and the saints whose playing makes you want to believe in heaven, while in the depths dwell legions of players no more competent than me who obsess about the details of observance - the correct blessing for their instrument (known as the “set-up”), the magical splinter of wood to conjure forth sounds, the authentic fairy dust to sprinkle over the wand. Meanwhile the congregation occasionally wake up to nod piously, secretly wondering what it’s all about and suspecting the priestly robes aren’t real cloth-of-gold.
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Nostalgic perhaps but accurate.
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Bumping this just in case somebody may have seen something like this before.
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Bumbling beginners should consider taking advice from someone with eight years of supervised training, 40 years in the business, awards for workmanship and who enjoys at least a modest international reputation for making good instruments. Also some of the other people whose advice you are rejecting are REALLY good. I personally value their advice when ever they are kind enough to offer it.
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The tools required to make a violin are not so many. I’d say a few of each: chisels, gouges, knives, thumb planes, bench planes, ruler, divider. Maybe even just a couple of each. A band saw is helpful but you can use a coping saw for pretty much everything that needs sawing. The demands on woodworking skill are not that great either really. You don’t have to be a Stradivari to make great violins. As in all things knowing what to do is everything.
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Do you make your own varnish or purchase from a vendor?
sospiri replied to scordatura's topic in The Pegbox
Just found this, 55 pictures of the Viotti: https://www.ram.ac.uk/museum/item/23629 I see ground, yellow pigment and red pigment. We can't see the chattoyance, so I guess it looks even nicer in front of you? -
I want everyone to see it. He wants €300 from us to store one log, I wonder how that works? That's about $340 or £260, what do we get for that? One million trees is maybe 1000 tonewood logs? yes more people should be involved, but how would we go about it?
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Source?
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Even European woods have wildly different reaction to humidity. Most of them also have hugely different reaction along grain vs. cross grain.
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Relax. I could probably have got the same result by holding the sound post near the humidifyier for a couple of seconds, or just holding it in my hand instead of repeatedly dropping it inside the viola. The very slight deformation was just enough to make the sound post fit tightly enough so that a bumbling beginner like me could tap it into proper position rather than getting it almost right and then knocking it over again. I doubt it was as much as 0.02mm.
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European and exotics woods don't react at the same speed to moisture change, that's just the problem.
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Sorry, I'm failing to understand what you're getting at.
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Maybe a Soliani is a poor man's Gobetti ...! Actually Gobetti is a Venetian maker from the very early 18th century - pre-dating Guadagnini and not much in common with him in terms of model and arching.
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But your document is for constent moisture, it's not the same thing for pegs, which can suffer from high moisture difference and it's exactly the problem between african woods and softer woods like fruitwoods.
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There's always gut for a tailgut. I forget which cello string I was told to use... The A probably. Heat it with a match to flare the end and rap 'er with thread.
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Ok done with another pieces of wood and make a new hole for the clamp screw
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In any event, ebony is not the worst material. I've an old hurdy gurdy whose pegs are made of bone and it's really insane.
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It is based on charts like this. (Sorry, I can't find my much more detailed chart right now, with more wood species) Chapter 3, page 10 in this book from the United States Department of Agriculture lists more species. https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.pdf
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Have you found your “lifetime” instrument?
Bill Merkel replied to PhilipKT's topic in The Fingerboard
Maybe. But I'm with Sig. Ceruti in that it's too cheap to get rid of It is one of the fiddles described here, 7th post down. https://maestronet.com/forum/index.php?/topic/120861-chinese-instruments/&page=2 Actually I have two of them. The first one needs some repair. The second one has the same character as the first but more so. I think the second one was bought and never touched and put under the bed for 20 years. No signs of use on the fingerboard or on the bow that was with it. It is monochromatic sounding, which I like, and reminds me of some Mario Gaddas I've heard on YT. Monochromatic, although can sound very rough if your bowing is messed up. $80 for the first one and $75 for the second one. I know it's running joke that someone's $75 fiddle is as good as your $15,000 one from Ann Arbor, but it is what it is Quickly made GdG of the future maybe. I would sell the first one. I'm getting ready to move and will probably give it away otherwise. The second one is better than the fiddle I had i n college, which was made by the shop of an American VSA winner. First one might be as good or better if it was fixed up some. -
aleezein joined the community
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All evidence is pointing to someone selling instruments "to be paid for sound" and who is now on a vendetta, riding personal attacks against everybody who in his eyes is representing the actual concept of expertising or pricing. Maybe being accused of over-selling something?
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All will work, but I prefer Kevlar. Like Deo Lawson said, they don’t stretch the way nylon does over time. I find that the threads can also wear out and cause slippage too easily. The titanium variety work nicely but tend to cut into the saddle more; for that reason, some people that use them put pieces of plastic/rubber where they are in contact with the saddle.
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I always keep track of the wood I use for everything, including experiments. All of the experiments have been posted on MN somewhere, but I post them when I do them, which means they're spread out over several years, and takes some effort to find them again.
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Relax. It just a wrong calculation for the bottom to properly fit on the top plate surface, i never do this type of job before, anyway i already redo with another new pieces .. not perfectly fit but will do for now. By the way is all the violin 4/4 chin rest clamp come with same length ?? I feel like i need another 1 to 2mm higher extension but the clamp not long enough for me to do that. Edited: Its alright i suddenly have an idea how to deal with this
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