Torbjörn Zethelius

Great find, nice f-holes.

Hi Dan, it's nice to see the comparison between the different methods. You have understood the (method 2) quite well except for a small detail; the measurements are taken from the outline of the body, not the ribs, which should render a wider spacing and slightly longer F's. Nice work though. Also, In my article I did not use the nadir of the corner, but the low portion of the C-bout. P.S. The algorithm for the mensur looks like this: mensur = body−(body/root5) It looks complicated but it's really not if drawn with ruler and compass. D.S.

Great video! Thanks for sharing.

Don't you find it odd that no Stradivari construction drawings exist? Many of his paper patterns were saved but they all appear to be just tracings. A lot of stuff has gone missing from the Stradivari collection. For example, there's the story about Giacomo Stradivari burning a 'bible' that contained the 1704 varnish recipe. What else was in that bible, and was it really a bible? The design method was a well kept secret, among many other things related to violin making IMO.

Very low odds. Let's just say I wouldn't bet on that horse.

Violinmaking is a craft like cooking. You need experience and good ingredients to make good food. Violinmaking is not much different.

It depends on how you define "Great" With good set up and a little tinkering it can probably be made to sound OK.

And I thought that I'm extreme. I hope you have nature nearby to breathe in. I see a few friends on a regular basis and I'm also playing backgammon every week with a friend or in tournaments so I guess I'm fine. I inherited a cat from my mother when she passed away but he was involved in a car accident and moved on. Lately I've started playing chess with another friend and we also go out every other week to eat. Sometimes I just go out to my local café. Being among people can be refreshing even if you don't know them or talk to anybody.

Since I finish the inside before the outside, it means that if I so desire I can tune the plate from the outside. However, tuning plates is not for me.

What about Andrea Amati, was he the first to lay them out on the inside?

That's interesting, thank you for that information. It was new to me. I did notice that the 1649 'Alard' Amati has a similar golden section layout as described in my article, if I remember correctly. Yes, Stradivari made corner less instruments, but not violins. But I could be wrong, I wasn't there when he made them.

The 1 mm step looks ugly imo. I prefer to make it 0.3 mm or so. Just enough to clear the varnish surface.

I've been using this method since violin making school. Here's the article I published in 2016 on how to make the paper guide for placing the F-holes. As you can see I use the full body length as a starting point. I agree with Davide that the inside was finished because one can find the original markings on the insides of Strads. I think that most other makers such as the Amati and Guarneri laid them out on the outside. @Marty Kasprzyk My method only applies to Cremona and especially to Stradivari. Joshua Bell's Strad I think was converted, Stradivari did not make cornerless violins. Laying out f-holes.pdf

If you think that the violin has lost something in sound. Especially in the bass.

I don't do the "inside first with curtate", I don't know what you mean by that? I don't use curtate cycloids at all to be clear. They're not necessary for the way I work. I prefer using a chain for the internal arch as your image illustrates perfectly. The delta diagram I don't understand so I can't comment on it. Perhaps you can explain it a little more? The other image is more clear. Had you fitted a parabola to the internal arch instead of a circle it would have shown the close resemblance between the catenary and a parabola. Only when I work on the thicknesses (on the outside of the plates) I tend to visualise a circle because it's easier to visualise than a curtate cycloid. In my method focus is mainly about creating an acoustically designed internal space. The external as I said are the thicknesses. That's the difference between the inside first versus outside first. I hope that is clear.