Brad Dorsey

Just yours. (And now mine.)

I also recommend checking for a partly unglued fingerboard.

Exactly.

A digital database similar in some respects to the one that you propose was created by Maestronet member fubbi2: http://oriscus.com/mi/archive/Rev-BaxtersArchive.htm This database is primarily a compendium of previously published information, so it is no better than the sources from which it is derived. I have never used it, but it would seem to be more convenient than consulting a bunch of different books.

A violin with a 5.8 mm soundpost will never sound right. It has to be 5.7 mm.

Because it would require so much work as to make it an impossible task. For many years I have been compiling a database of this type for New Hampshire (USA) violin makers. I started with the NH makers listed in the Wenberg and Fairfield books. I recorded NH labeled instruments that I encountered at violin shops, antique shops, auctions, offered for sale on Ebay, etc. I consulted journals of the Violin Society of America, the American Musical Instrument Society the NH Historical Society and various other publications. Other people who learned of my interest told me about makers they had heard of. If someone told me "My grandfather made a violin," I added the grandfather to my list. I interviewed living makers. I consulted birth and death records in the NH state archives and obituaries in micro-filmed newspapers at the NH State Library. My list now includes about 130 makers. I doubt that it includes everyone who ever made a violin in NH. Knowing first hand what was required to compile an incomplete list of makers for a relatively small geographical area not known as a violin making region and where violins have only been made for about two centuries, I cannot imagine anyone trying to do the same thing for the whole world over the last five centuries.

Yes, crowns are sometimes installed to restore the shape of a worn or damaged button. Another reason for a crown could be to conceal a button doubling when the button was not repaired by Jacob's invisible method.

The lines in your shots of end grain are annular growth rings, not "worm track."

That seems pretty likely. Usually it's the other way around -- cheap German scroll on a rustic American body.

For me, violin and bow repairing was a hobby that gradually grew into a business. I did fly under the radar at first. I figured out the business stuff on my own as I went along. Many might say that I never did figure it out properly.

But, according to what Nathan said, it's not one disease. It's maple's healing reaction to various types of injuries. And it's not confined to red maple. Giving it a new name here would only add to the confusion. I've been working wood for over 50 years, and I've never heard it called "worm track," or any other name. I guess I'll have to start calling it "worm track" while remembering that it's not necessarily caused by worms.

Yes, good post. But why do we see "worm track" (or whatever we're going to call it from now on) only in American maple? Perhaps the answer is found where you say, "...in maple, especially Acer Rubrum, the cells involved in healing wounds are generally darker in color than the normal wood fiber." This suggests that the phenomenon is found in all maples, but it's darker colored in Acer Rubrum. (Which I call red maple when I cut it for fire wood.) Are these marks found it other American maples such as big leaf? And what are we going to call it from now on?

I suggest wrapping the instrument with paper before wrapping it with bubble wrap, because bubble wrap imprints some varnishes. I think one layer of newspaper is sufficient.

Yes. The back side of my bench is against a wall. I cut a vertical notch about an inch wide in the back of the bench top. The notch fits tightly around a vertical strip of wood that's bolted to the wall. The bench wobbled annoyingly before I stabilized it in this fashion; now it's absolutely rigid. But it's not really fastened to the wall. I can easily slide it out from the wall if I want to.

I don't know the cause of these streaks that are often found in American maple. I've always thought that it was some type of mineral deposit. I've never heard it called "worm track." I think it's likely that loggers call it that not because it's caused by worms but because its appearance is suggestive of worm tracks, in the same way that hazel fichte in spruce is sometimes called "bear claw" even though we know it's not caused by bears.