David Beard

The original OP was talking about very small changes to outline. Under that limitation, 'small changes', you can argue that sound is somewhat insensitive to the body outline. But then the thread ran off as if outline doesn't matted at all. Kind of a big leap? Just look at extreme cases and you can see that outline does ultimately matter. Where's the line between doesn't matter and does matter? Who knows. Soundholes however appear to be very sensitive to change of all kinds. We seem to make over big leaps often around here. Under circumstances 'A': If 'B

This is just an example of the shorter flattish stretch. This is not at all unique to Del Gesu.

"some" You also can't rule out that they ALL might have worked under the shared common notion that the top long arcs should be carved differently than backs in basically exactly the way we see them today.

Read the second sentence. You limit this to modern makers erroneously immitating what they thought old makers did. Then ultimately conceed that neither you nor I actually positively know currently. That's good if you sruck with it. Remember, you are the one claiming that what we see in thousands of examples isn't to be believe. You have the burden to justify such a claim. You are making the more conjectural claim that 'what we see, basically wasn't.' I am making the more neutral claim that 'what we see basically was'. But, I happily acknowledge that we both are hypothesizin

This is the first time you have clearly limited your claim: "either is, or could be, an artifact of typical distortion". However, you are still claiming more than your experiment earns. You have only demonstrated that under some conditions it is sometimes possible to change a modern through curved top arch shape into something that looks a bit more like a classicsl top long arch. As I enumerated in an earlier post, you have not demonstrated the further points that would allow claiming that the classical long arches didn't start off carved in with the basic character of arching w

How many of you can't think back and remember picking up, holding, maybe touching, and certainly marveling at an old extreme Venetian or Tyrolean example where the height of the top is wild and extends crazy far toward the blocks, and with thar height extending very full and wide across the upper and lower bouts. Are you really going to be told those shapes weren't carved that way? That the extreme ends and widths of those outer bout areas were lifted high and pushed out full by comparatively many times smaller movements at the bridge? Why not just believe your eyes, evidence

So now people are saying that every photo shows the flattish v through curve difference from back to top, but it's just a random photographic illusion, even though we get the same sort of illusion across hundreds of examples? Are you so afraid to use your eyes to see what's obviously true? Have we been gaslighted so much these recent years that people can no longer look and see with their own eyes?

And for that, I trust him in what he actually observed.

I am not denying their actual observations that arches distort, and that under some circumstances you can start with a through curved top long arch and use bridge pressure to transform it into something more like a classical long arc shape. I am saying that they have not demonstrated that: >such distortions are sufficient to produce the full range of existing classical long arcs that any limited idiot like me can dig up and observe nor >that such distortions acting on an already classically shaped long top arch don't normally leave it still looking like a classical lo

Ditto.

There's equally no basis for your claim that the all tops significantly changed from their initial character of shape.

It took longer than I anticipated to get back to this. OK. We're considering Burgess's hypothesis that characteristic flattish stretches in Old Cremona and Old Italian and generally much or most pre-modernization violin making didn't start that way, but was carved originally with more continuous curvatures rather like the backs, and that the flattishness and associated extended height of these long top arches was primarily acquire by distortion from string pressure over time. Let's start by noting that this hypothesis solves a problem that doesn't need solving. There is

Hogo, there is no question that some distortion occurs. David, I believe your experiment. And I've been aware of it for many years. The question is 'are these distortions the cause of the classical ling arc shapes?' I still say no. The distortions you point to are consistent enough or extensive enough to be the cause. I don't have time today, but sometime in the next 36 hours I post some about some of the specific the lead me to believe simple distortion is insufficient to be the cause of those classical shapes.

Remember, this distortion somehow magically but accidentally transformed every Cremona arching into the well formed range of archcungs that the world now covets. And, of course, since this instruments were adooted as the best quite soon after their making, they were coveted before, during, and after this magical transformation.

The notches are not meant to be square. The obtuse shapes helps when it comes time to detach the blocks. This also applies to both end block cutouts. The sides of those notches are meant to be obtuse. AND, the bottoms of those notches aren't supposed to be unbroken. Drill a few holes straddling those lines before cutting them. This way you have a few pry points when its time to separate the blocks from the molds. The horizontal lines etched on the classical molds connecting between corner notches are also not random or pointless. These help guide you in restoring worn notches l