David Burgess

That depends on what you mean by "mercury vapor" bulbs. As Don has already pointed out, standard fluorescent bulbs are one form of mercury vapor bulb. When I experimented with UVC (germicidal or "germ killing" bulbs), they didn't seem to provide any advantages over UVB for either wood tanning or varnish drying. And yes, they can be highly dangerous.

Ribs will largely relax to a new shape eventually, if the shape change isn't too severe.

Oh my!

Nope. ctanzio has a strong history of well-thought-out posts. It is you who have taken looking silly to a new level. If you're a conflict addict looking for a fix, one problem is that you're several years late to the party. Old vs new has been a hot topic in the past. Just about every conceivable claim and question (including yours) have already been asked, argued and answered, and now many of us are bored with it. You might need to try a different topic or a different forum if conflict and argument are what you are seeking. It's like a party where the first two hours are spent discussing last night's big game, and then they move on to other things. During hour four, you arrive and say, “Hey, how about that game last night?" Do your homework. Study some of these old threads, and see if you have anything new to offer which hasn't already been said. Grasshopper. I have, and still will bend over backwards for people who show a serious desire to learn. Your pompousness, in an attempt to imitate knowledge, is nothing more than old and boring.

Nice looking light box! I made the walls on mine out of aluminum sheet screwed to a skeleton frame, and mounted the ballasts outside the box to keep the interior heat down. I also use only 4 tubes, which seems to work fine for varnish drying, but may be slower for tanning (which I don't do, so don't have much experience with). I'd recommend lining the top and bottom with aluminum foil as well, so the varnish on the ends of a cello doesn't dry much more slowly than the rest of the instrument. And I'll put added emphasis on what Michael N. said about monitoring the relative humidity inside the box. It will fall as the temperature rises. People have had instruments crack due to the dryness in their light boxes.

Is that you, dear? Looks like you're doing well. So sorry for not taking the time to track you down when the rescue crew arrived at the island. They were in a big hurry, so I just had to go.

Which Simon on a desert island? This one? https://snltranscripts.jt.org/87/87hisland.phtml

Thanks so much! Others here have done a much better job of that than I have. I learn from the best makers and restorers on a constant basis, and do try to expose BS for what it is. Sure, some people won't like it very much so there will be some backlash. That's just how things go, and is not in the least unexpected.

You have obviously mistaken me for someone who gives a rip, grasshopper. Now see if you can improve your "economy of words".

1. Heavens no! Repetition is not a substitute for knowledge or thinking skills, grasshopper. Why did you think that repetition might be pertinent? Claudia Fritz, Jacques Poitevineau, and Fan Tao are not makers, numb-nuts. 2. Oh, thanks so much for purveying me as being younger than I am, since I like to think so too. I started working full-time in the Weisshaar shop in 1971. Again, what would you like to compare? Actual high-level experience, how much we can bench press, or what? Your call. For all we know, since you don't post under your real name, you could easily be some 13-year-old, posting from your Mammas basement. How would you fare if you posted under your real name, enabling those interested to look it up?

A432, how familiar are you with experiments like this? https://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5395 Have you ever participated? (Doing so can be quite and eye-opener.)

I can come up with a beer or three. No cello for at least 6 months.

Philip, you'd be welcome to hang out here for an hour or two, and then we'll see how it goes from there. I am not very close to Texas, but a little closer than Martin.

String or thread soaked in one solvent or another (including water and citrus solvents) can be very useful.

Dream on. Did you even realize that you were using mockery as a rebuttal? Sure, I'll sometimes run "tit-for-tat" games on people, because the results can not only be enlightening from an informational perspective, but also highly amusing. What would you like to do next? Would you like to compare the prissiness and length of our posts, the people we have actually worked alongside, the dimensions of our tallywhackers, the amount of starch we put into our underpants, the diameter of the broomsticks we have accidentally sat on, or what?