Salve Håkedal

.. (Sorry,! For some reason the font became huge, and I don't want that.)

Yess. When I started making I felled a "lind" (Tília cordata), which smells lovely, is light and cuts well. But is plain white. Then finally, after 30+ years I tried something else: "selje" (Salix caprea) from my firewood pile. Upper right corner.. My inside work is rougher than Davides. But color is nice!

Ctanzio, I've been on Linux for 20 years. I've had problems for sure, but never virus related. Thanks to the operating system but also to the user. If someone sends me an email with an attached program (bash script) containing the simple line "rm -r *", and tells me to run it, all my files will be gone. BUT I DON'T DO THAT!

Virus = Microsoft Windows

If you can take music outside equal temperament, here is a Stradivari Tenor model tuned an octave below violin:

When it's that cold, the pee will freeze before hitting the fiddle.

My most important consideration would be not to have a too high arching/steep rise close to the end- and neck-block. So I agree with Nathan as well as Don. I've done that mistake once with very light, and therefore soft, spruce. and it is now bulging up rather unpleasantly under the fingerboard and under the tailpiece. Making it thicker to try to compensate for the fiber runout would not really have helped much to prevent the bulging/creep.

I don't think it is possible to make a child size violin sound anything like a full size. Small thicknesses will help, but it will still sound different. I think that's all right. A childs voice is different from a grown up, too. So I think that's cool.

Geared pegs saves a lot of hardangerfiddle players and listeners time. They are mostly well recieved by players. One should use child size pegs, just as one should when fitting a hardangerfiddle with wooden pegs. (By the way, the picture above is a Viola d'amore, not a hardangerfiddle)

Wittners are a blessing!

Don! You are so beautifully intelligent, down to earth, to the point etc.-etc.... Thank you!

Holidays turns me somewhat crazy. To kill time until I start working again, I keep pondering: Changing the overstand on a violin from 6 mm to 5 will change the strings angle to the bridge with around 0.5 degree. Stopping the a-string at the double octave on a normal set up violin, will sharpen that angle with around 3 degrees! The corresponding overstand would be around -2! (2 millimeters below the table surface.) I hope you overstand .. ææhh .. understand. Happy new year, Jerry and All!

I understand the issue about playability in the upper positions, I'm just not conviced that a couple of millimetres at the overstand is that important. So I'd like someone to have "proof". Proofs in violin making is very difficult. Has anyone made the change in overstand only? That is: not combined with other work. That would be a scientifical way to (try to) prove it.

OK, Jerry. So you (or me) have all the other "variables controlled", and then you (or me) set the overstand to 4mm. What happens?

Apart from getting to the upper positions, which I maybe understand, (kind of); what is the problem with - let's say - 4mm overstand? Anybody ever proved anything, or might it just be modern practice and assumption?