Brad Dorsey

duane88 is referring to "The Art of Violin Making" by Chris Johnson and Roy Courtnall. The general consensus on this forum is that this book is the best beginner's guide to violin making available.

One thing you might consider to start off is buying and assembling a violin kit. They vary according to quality and amount of work required. For example, here's one of several offered by International Violin Company: Chinese Violin Kit (internationalviolin.com) Good luck.

I wouldn't call it an abnormality, because it's completely normal. I would call it an irregularity in the wood grain.

It's partly the properties of the wood and partly what the maker does with the wood, specifically how he or she graduates, cambers and balances the stick. Both factors are a mystery to me. A skilled bow maker would probably have a better understanding.

Yes. There are some in "L'Archet."

Congratulations. You did well. Please send me a personal message the next time you get a genuine Vuillaume.

You have been mis-informed.

What is it? Where does one get it?

The disproportionately large C bouts are another indication that this instrument has been cut down.

It's obvious that it would work well for this. If the scraper were not exactly vertical, it would certainly be at a consistent angle close to vertical, which it probably more desirable than being exactly vertical. But I've never tried drilling holes in scraper material. How hard is it?

I always clean bows with alcohol. It quickly removes rosin and dirt from most bows. After cleaning, I apply a very thin coat of orange shellac to the stick by the French polishing method. In my experience, alcohol does not remove the finish from good bows, or, if it does, any finish that is removed is renewed by the French polishing. Some cheap bows have colored finishes that are easily removed by alcohol, but since they are cheap bows I don't really care. On some of these bows, when I see that the finish is alcohol-soluble, I clean lightly to remove most of the rosin and dirt and leave most of the finish. And on some cheap bows I strip off all the finish. They look better after being French polished on the bare wood that they did with the cheap colored finish that I removed.

I can't be sure, but it looks good as far as I can tell.

When I showed Hans Nebel a bow stamped FRANCE, he said "It might have passed over a map of France once."

Phillip is right.

Stars.