pbelin

More marks, all Strads.d

Mine is quite purple when dry, but makes a beautiful dark red when I mix it into my varnish.

If I remember right, she bought Andrew's violin after it got the gold medal at the Paris competition in 1998. She was in the Jury.

Yes sonowood walnut is the best alternative I've used so far, some pieces are so dark that it's not obvious it's no ebony. And it's as good as the best ebony I've ever seen, if not better. Not very friendly with your tools though... Corene doesn't work for me.

Looking forward to reading them!

I find the B&G book worth every penny. The instruments are very well chosen, the pictures are superb, as is the print. I can understand why some of you don't give so much value to Greiner's part, but I think it's a mistake . We all have to figure out what to do with the science part, and I find his interpretation pretty good. My 2 cents...

Valid point, but.. The instruments we want to emulate (not all of us, I know...) would have been properly restored. There are very few Strads with ugly cracks, so I'm not gonna make one just because it might look old

Another thing. For one large-ish scratch, make 10 medium ones, 100 small, hardly visible ones, and 1000 that won't be visible unless you use a loupe. When you're done, clean the large one because that's what almost anyone would do on an old instrument...

Ok thanks!

Cooked rosin (limed) with washed and cooked linseed oil, nothing fancy. Rosin to oil 2 or 3 to 1. The varnish itself is cooked too, it's not a cold mix. Turpentine and a bit of spike oil to spread.

My freshly applied varnish is strongly fluorescent white, and upon drying it becomes duller and goes towards an orange fluorescence. Can anyone explain that?

If you consider that the oil and the resin separate over time in a cold brew, it's also likely that the ratio changed... I find this very interesting btw. On another subject I'm still puzzled by BB finding a protein layer and Echard not... I you test my instruments you will also find it on some, on others not, on some only on the spruce, but they both seem to get consistent result, just different ones.

My experience is that if you use a very lean varnish (4:1),it sets so quickly that you have no chance to varnish a cello. Adding a little bit of raw linseed oil slows the tack time considerably without changing the proportions so much. Brigitte Brandmair, with whom I talked about that, thinks it would explain the different crackling found on cellos vs violins. As for a lean varnish being too brittle, I noticed my varnish becomes tougher with time, and the various layers of polish melted into the varnish probably softened it a little.

https://www.anipo.org/ This is an rfid chip system

This sharp edge is very practical to have a clean finish att he collar.