Urban Luthier

Fascinating Christian thanks for sharing! What are your design and engineering objectives? Increased response from a loudness perspective (projection)? Enhancing certain frequencies i.e. around 1K? strength vs weight? Other?

Another recording with the Cannone featuring Francesca Dego on the Chandos label

it appears their email address isn't working either info@klensmide.se

A comparison of various sharpening media by grit size. Valuable resource courtesy of Lee Valley https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/tools/grit-charts

klensmide.se seems to be offline

In this case 'seeing is really believing'. I got the idea of using a loupe from one of your posts a while back. I couldn't figure out why my block plane blade was dull after a few passes over ebony. Answer was simple - poor sharpening routine led to a 'false' sharp - as David notes above - a burr will dig into your nail, cut hair, newspaper and wood - but a burr means your blade isn't fully sharp and will also dull your cutting edge really quickly - you can see the affect through a loupe. For what it is worth I find the Shapton glass stones do a good job of quickly removing the burr. I li

Personally I find the very best tool is a 5-10x loupe and a bright light - you can easily see whether you have an consistent scratch pattern at the cutting edge and that the burr has been removed. For sharpening I don't think you need a lot. I find the Tormek useful for grinding back and shaping tools to the desired angle and or shape. A 1000 grit stone for honing, a 4000-8000 one for polishing and the green compound with a leather strop for final polishing. I use 1000 and 16000 shapton glass stones.

A few resources from Addie kindly posted by Peter http://www.thestradsound.com/maestronet/stradivari-forma-by-addie

Like Darryl, I use Allback. I had to wash it - there was a fair bit of mucous left over after cleanup (see the bass book for instructions). Alternately any good art supply store will sell pure cold pressed linseed oil.

Wow that is a huge impact - thanks for sharing. Is mic placement one of the reasons that strings instruments don't sound as natural as they should in recordings vs what we experience live in a good concert hall? If it comes down to microphone placement, why don't more engineers utilize a binaural microphone setup (ie. a dummy head with mics placed in the ears. I understand some Chesky recordings were made this way and they 'give the illusion' of sounding quite natural.

interesting demonstration of the affect of microphone placement in the recording process

Guitars as lutes as well I guess- mass produced by the thousands if the Laux Maler inventory is to believed. Not to mention that the tension on some Gambas was so high -- it is no wonder that few survive in playing condition! A humbling reminder for the modern luthier labouring under an ideal of Renaissance genius

You always pick really cool models to work from Christian! - I like the look of this one - is it a bit narrower through the waist than the conte vitale? Looking forward to more photos as you progress.

Gramophone Magazine liked the recording. So did the BBC. Great performer. I saw her in concert before the pandemic doing an all Bach programme. If you don't have a streaming service, you can sample recordings at www.prestomusic.com.

Really nice work!