Conor Russell

A few thoughts on fresh v old wood. Years ago, perhaps having read Roger’s article, I made a violin from really new wood, cut just a year or two. I glued up two sets with casein, concerned about shrinking pressure on the joints. I made a Testore model with one set, and threw the other up on the henhouse roof, to see how good the glue really was (it survived a year of Irish weather) The fresh wood was very free to carve, and I really liked it. It also developed a suntan very quickly, and I had no distortion problems that I remember. I liked the idea that the wood would season as a violin, and I eventually varnished it and sold it. it always amazes me just how much light comes through a new belly compared with an old violin’s. I’ve used some very old fronts, but can’t remember them being much less translucent. But with age, fronts let less and less light through. I wonder if the wood stiffens too. I, and several others have noticed that some of our violins became tight over twenty years or so, and have occasionally thinned the tops a bit because they seemed to have become stiff.

I think maybe the pieces are hiding a couple of screw heads or something.

Hi Andreas, The one on the left. Here are some pictures. Since they are both perched on top of English fiddles, I wondered if they were both related. You see the extra turn on Kennedy scrolls. These are much less refined, but I can’t remember having seen it on other English instruments.

Going through old unfinished projects, I came across this head. It reminded me of one from the British Violin book, on a Jacob Rayman violin, but not belonging to it. Mine is from an old English violin too, I think, but from about 1800 ish. Any idea who made these?

Here’s something i have never seen before. It’s an old violin, the ribs let into the back, that had once a through neck. In each of the back corners, there’s a little wedge of wood let in, as if in an effort to make the edge a bit thicker there. There are no wedges in the front. Any idea what’s this all about?

My favourite were old horn combs, but the teeth wear out, and junk shops, where you’d find them, are a thing of the past. The horn grips the hair a bit. now I’m using half of a double sided plastic nits comb, and it’s every bit as good.

I use old forged shell reamers sometimes, to match an existing taper. They work well, and can be easily sharpened, but they’re much more difficult to direct than the modern reamers. I’d probably chuck the collar. You can mark the reamer with a pencil.

Water can make the job more difficult, as it softens the glue and swells it and the wood, limiting its penetration of a wide joint. It’s useless for example when removing a fingerboard. Alcohol, allowed to wick in from the tip of a brush, will dehydrate the glue and pop the joint. I use it opening edges too. Soaking old cracks with strips of kitchen towel overnight will soften the glue and allow it to be washed away with warm water, without further damaging the wood. I use cold water.

Eliseveldt, I usually make purflings for small instruments in wide strips, about the depth of a violin rib. I make them from veneers, scraped to thickness, and glue them with hide glue over an inside form. Then I cut them into strips with a marking gauge. I get about three violins worth each time. For cellos, I fit the purflings as three loose strips. I put the glue in the cut with a syringe, and wiggle the strips as I knock them in. The glue works its way up between them.

That’s very interesting. i had a Perry violin here that seemed very clearly made in the Mittenwald tradition. It was branded and labelled correctly, and the maker was following the Perry templates, just as a local outworker would have done. I supposed that Perry had had it made, and imported it. I think it was dated about 1810. I wonder were the English bow makers doing the same. The Dodd bows I’ve seen often have wider diagonal facets, and file marks on the stick, especially behind the head. I wonder what the stick work is like on the German bows?

I wasn’t aware of German bows branded Dodd on both frog and stick. I’ve seen more ordinary bows branded on the stick alone, but never with a convincing brand.

As far as I remember it can be had from a sausage making supplie.

Many of the great old violins have lost most of their varnish, and a great expert once told me he thought they lost it in their first ten years. Nowadays, it can be pretty ugly, but without a shoulder rest or chinrest, and a suspension case, the varnish would, I think, wear much more generally, and look much better. I consider tough, durable varnish to be inferior, not that I’m sure I’ve come up with anything better. I sometimes have instruments come back like the one above. If the ground is nice and dark, it’s often enough to wash back the goo with water, and tidy it up a bit, but I’m cautious about varnishing over before the process has reached a natural limit. i have a cello I made in 1996 coming in soon to be completely revarnished. After thirty years the thing is still sticking to the poor man’s legs on warm days!

I think making long strips works well, but they can be a pain to cut into slices. If you roll them tightly in gummed paper tape, and let the roll dry, you can saw thin slices off without them chipping or flying across the room. I made a little circular saw table with a dremmel for this.

I remember years ago violin expert said to me that the difference between a Strad and a skylark was about 2mm and a different varnish. I'd be very impressed if ai could ever reliably identify a particular maker, given that no two instruments are the same, if they’re made by hand. If my instruments were scanned, it might surmise that there were several hundred Conor Russells living in Wicklow in the late twentieth century, some of whom seemed to be drunk.