Jerry Lynn

We've had people in from Vienna before, as well as many other parts of Europe, and Asia. Far is really only a state of mind. This year we've got a strong showing from Mexico. If I remember correctly, Maximillian I of Mexico was the younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I... you could rekindle diplomatic relations.

Happy Birthday David! You really haven't changed that much. Probably getting in just as much trouble now as then.

I've got no idea.

As David said, if you want top-notch, it's expensive. Also, you'd be amazed how quickly you can burn through a hundred hours when someone is expecting it done to extremely high standards.

You can also get it to incorporate from the beginning. It's my go to for releasing some forms of wood fill.

Sometimes crowns are used to help fool the eye for grafted buttons, meaning a fully replaced button and not patched as Jacob is describing. This also seems to be loosing favor. A lot of crowns are put on these days to brand new instruments just because people like the look.

One of the things I started doing when I began working for myself was making a gauge that the player could use to help maintain their bridge after I cut a new bridge for them. That combined with a small amount of time spent educating and coaching how to maintain a bridge so far has resulted straighter bridges and happier clients. The clients call the gauges “idiot sticks.” I have noticed that I can’t count on ordering Aubert blanks sight unseen anymore, and I’ve needed to switch to other manufacturers unless I can pick in person.

You’ve seen the movie Ghost busters, right? It’s like crossing the streams, only not quite as bad. A lot of my involvement is in a advisory capacity, and I’m editing the first couple of shows. I may creep in more dependent on what’s needed. Mostly, my interest is in getting people whom I respect to tell us something about themselves in a way that wasn’t possible in previous generations. Something reminiscent of time we had Roland Feller recant stories at Oberlin. With out giving too much away, Ben Hebbert and the other Jerry (or am I the other Jerry? Probably I’m the other) have graciously given their time to tell us things that might be overlooked in any other vehicle. If you’d ever want to give us a report from possum lodge, David, you’d be welcome to.

Practice makes perfect! Probably more victims out there...

Please don’t think I was suggesting that I Pooh-pooh’d anything. On the contrary, a large portion of selling nicer instruments is education, and providing comparison of like items in both past and current sales for pricing.

I find this thread amusing, and I’m sure I’ll regret my usual lurker status... it brings back lots of memories working for a larger firm where one of the most common questions asked in selling a violin was “is this hand made?” After getting into 20th century violins, the most honest answer I could give was “I have no idea.” Similarly, answers to questions like “is this an oil varnish?” Or, “did they have help making this?” With out first hand or historical sources proving one way or the other, you are left to judge the instrument on its own merits. My own experience with numerical controlled cutting technology comes from restoration work. From that I can tell you that it’s none of this as easy as people contributing to this thread would like you to believe. There’s substantially more head work to achieve extremely conservative results than the head work involved in doing things the old fashioned way. In 300 years our decendents will be arguing if the wood in the instrument was grown in a forest or printed on a cellulose printer.

Removing over varnish, or any sort of retouching, is never straight forward. Testing in inconspicuous areas, I generally try several different mechanical methods and solvents to see what is the most conservative approach to preserving the varnish and possibly texture below it. My "go to" method often ends up being scraping very slowly with a small curved scalpel blade (swann morton #15 being my favorite), checking often under UV light to make sure that i'm not accidentally encroaching on the original coatings. Another mechanical method is using an artist eraser. Occasionally soft over varnish, or over varnish that's been softened with solvents, can be pulled off in little balls with the use of a good quality white drafting eraser. Solvents are not straightforward, particularly with some shellacs that can become alcohol insoluble over time. Often, I find that Im using solvents, I need to alternate between them. (For instance, starting with alcohol followed by acetone, etc) Solvents can also be too aggressive, slowing them down with castor oil, and wiping away the oil residue with white spirit can sometimes be useful. There is no magic bullet, and often a job can mean using all the tricks. Good luck!

Woof. The danger of not doing anything with worm track is if the instrument gets dropped, takes a hit, or perhaps even squeezed too tightly the results can be really bad. Dealing with them is a mixed bag of pick your poison. The current thinking tends to bend towards using non-water based fillers. If the repair fails, the filler can be removed and replaced again. At least with open trenches. I've had good luck with a flexible two part epoxy called woodepox on open trenches on the inside of ribs. Externally, some commercial fillers work well, and with practice, you can retouch them effectively. Some also have good luck with scanning/cnc replacement of missing material. Closed track is much more problematic. The trend has been towards injecting them with various flexible epoxies. As you can imagine, there are difficulties with this...

There are two different versions of Fiebings. The "Pro" is a little more permanent than the normal stuff. Back at the firm we used to use it with reasonable success. There are still some players who's sweat will cause it to bleed. If you want to avoid it all together, black hair dye is the way to go. Takes a little more time, and costs more per board than Fiebings.

There are plenty of oil varnishes that are more than sensitive to alcohol. To make things more confusing there are coatings that were spirit that are now not very alcohol soluble.