David Beard

But this is inescapable. The best most people can manage is to follow proxy guidance, since they don't perceive the quality directly for themselves. You can call this 'tricked' if you like. But it remains the best option for most. Price is one of the proxy guides. And of course it's imperfect.

Wine, violins, strings, art These things are fake for most. So are science, logic, and math. Most people can't track the truth of any of these things. At the highest levels of anything, depth of perception comes into play, for some. But for most, that perception is either absent or faked. Majority blindness doesn't the truth of extra perception known only by a few. High price is an imperfect proxy for actual perception. Is a bow a good player's bow? Only good players can answer that. But good dealers have many proxies that enable them to present likely candidates to real players, and the many clueless others. It is intrinsically an elitist scenario. Does Sartory make more good playing bows than most? Yes.

From an historical perspective, it seems to me that the back outlines are more 'chosen' clean designs. The top outlines have a greater aspect of 'following' whatever vagries are introduced by the unsquareness of the sides, which in classical work can be very significant.

There is a theory that he could perhaps have worked from one mould. On the other hand, there is no evidence to support that, only the conjecture that it be a possible thing. We don't know. He might have used twenty moulds. The thing is, we don't have them. We're only guessing.

Sure.

This kind of micro layer analysis is the only way to improve our understanding

Some modern makers use the same front to back. Some folks believe the famous instruments of old Cremona were originally made that way, but changed over time. None of those survivng old instruments currently show equal top and back archings. The tops are quite different, particularly in the long arc along the center line.

Does anyone have suggestions of what the first overall treatment was?

To Michael's point, it's interesting to note how readily the old maker's widened the upper eye gap for instrument types with more strings and therefore wider bridges. It seems the gap adjusted for the purpose of accomodating the bridge, not for some grander purpose.

If you aren't referencing from classical example, then fine. Make up any system that appeals to you. But, in the historical examples, the long arcs vary back to top, and example to example. That is, they correspond to no simple input output function. Consider the well document practices in boat hull shaping from the time. Mostly this relied on determining the locations of a limit number of control points, then creating the 3d hull shape as a smoothed surface running through those points. The idea of a bent slat gave their concept of a smooth curve. One of the old boat hull shaping techniques was to mark off divisions along the length, then set some key heights for the curve in relation to those marked out divisions. Such an approach can easily be applied to the archs of instruments, and can encompass the variety actually seen. ******** Also, note curvatures in the old archings. A circle are is characterized by a constant curvature. With only a minority of exceptions, classical arching are NOT charaterized by constant curvatures. Thus they are not about circle arcs in the great majority of examples.

Yes. This is my understanding also. 'Dragon's Blood' has meant at different times what we now call Sandrach, Juniper Resin, and the later introduced resin we now call 'Dragon's Blood'. What we now call Dragon's Blood is very unlikely to be intended in older texts. Similarly, words like 'Turpentine', Balsaam, and 'Spirits' have had multiple meanings. Also interesting: 'varnish' = 'vernice' = 'bernice' = 'amber' (at least sorta). Also, 'amber' v 'resin' v 'copal' were not necessisarily perfectly delineated historically.

BOB can be obvious, but not always so. Not built on inside mould can be obvious in many cases. Not all cases are obvious. ( In my humble non expert opinion on this matter. )

There can be different schemes for naming octaves. To keep it simple, the A string of a standard violin tunes to A 440.

However, how much do we need to back track. Discussion of historical nailing should probably presume nailing and attaching neck to sides before presenting either to the back. This means there is no difficulty fitting the neck to both sides and back, because that just didn't happen. The neck was fitted to the sides alone. And with no precise concern for allignmemt.

However, how much do we need to back track. Discussion of historical nailing should probably presume nailing and attaching neck to sides before presenting either to the back. This means there is no difficulty fitting the neck to both sides and back, because that just didn't happen. The neck was fitted to the sides alone. And with no precise concern for allignmemt.