nathan slobodkin

The alternative method you are picturing would rely on the glue of the top to block and rib joint to resist the tension of the strings. Having the neck root bear on the end grain of the top is far less likely to seperate or allow the neck to drop in pitch. I have never seen a neck set as you suggest and think it unlikely to give good results.

Antoaneta, Where there is this kind of localized warping it may be helpful to open the seam further toward the corner of the bout to give the plate some where to go when closing the warped area. I would follow Jacob’s advice about care ful cleaning of any area which has been left open for a long time. Also Jeffreys’ comment is important. There may be much more going on than just the open seam. What school are you going to? Surely some of your teachers could advise you on this.

Me too. What I am talking about is not a scraping plane but a regular plane or chisel working in the normal direction with a slight hook down towards the flat side of the blade. Jesse’s upper drawing is about right but the lower one shows the burr pushed way too far back.It should still be cutting forward, that is to the left in his picture.

Yes, that’s it. The turned edge should be just barely there looking much like the upper drawing ( not as big as the lower drawing). Bill would sometimes reach through to mouth of the plane with a pointed burnisher to gently turn the edge down without taking the blade out. As I said before when this is done on chisels it allows the chisel to be used almost like a plane with the flat side held down hard and a very thin shaving coming off as the tool is pushed forward. He used that to shape the slide channel and the recess for the heel plate leaving a dead smooth and flat bottom to the recesses.

Still No. I don't know how to draw on these infernal machines but the hook or burr was the opposite direction, down towards the flat side of the blade. I cant really explain why it worked but it certainly did. As I said I haven't made bows for a long time and haven't used these style blades but there was no question that being able to use the flat side of a chisel to guide the cut while still cutting was very important to that method of bow making.

Much of the past experimentation with bass bars seemed to be moving toward ways to increase the bar weights a la Verzi brothers and Peter Zaret. Both claimed large improvements which I personally didn't hear. I did however go to a slightly straighter non gothic profile for bars on my later instruments and think their may be some advantage in a slightly heavier bar for the same stiffness and footprint. Quote from Carl Becker Jr. "too much is made of bass bars"

No. My recollection (from 45 years ago) is that the blade was turned the other way and was used on a regular plane with a regular bevel. He also did this with chisels so that the chisel could be laid flat and still cut such as when making the channels for pearl slides or heel plates. I haven't really made bows since about 1986 so I don't sharpen anything like this anymore but I remember that it did work very nicely and watching Bill work was a real eye opener. He did use some scraper planes as above for finishing as well as scratch gauges with square ground blades for fluting baroque style sticks and so forth. I remember watching him make a fluted baroque bow in a single day from beginning to end. A modern bow with hand made ferrule and button took about 16 hours. That is flat metal, a split chunk of ebony, a rough sawn pernambuco stick blank, a rough sawn ivory tip plate, a threaded screw without the button and a hank of hair to polished and playing.

A 432 is correct as far as Bill Salchows instructions about sharpening bow tools. He would sharpen at fairly normal angles then turn the edge with a burnisher to get the "bite". I was also in Bill's classes in 1981-82. Care to PM me with your name A432?

Good tools make life easier but almost all of them need some modification so these might be fine. The big issue on cheapies is sloppy threading which allows thinks to misalign or "cam out" when gluing.

Definitely something which worries me also. I usually describe instruments on the repair ticket as “labeled as” or “bearing the stamp” Unless I am quite certain of the attribution.

If one advises against buying something one can take credit for saving the buyer from making a hypothetical (and unprovable) mistake while advising someone to buy risks being blamed should the instrument not deliver perfect happiness.

I think it was fidiculous. Sort of like this conversation.

Having worked in one of the few American shops to try to make student level instruments at a compettitive price I don't think it can be done. Even with immigrant labor and basically sweatshop conditions the prices still could not compete at the lower student level. We were mostly competing with the factory made German instruments at the time and were able to make considerably better instruments for not too much more money but as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed the Poles (with Bill Lee's help) and Romanians started making the same quaIity instruments for less. When the Chinese entered the market even the Eastern Europeans had to upgrade the quality and start selling in a higher price class. I am not really familiar with the modern CNC technology and so forth but we did use pantographs and some pretty clever machines for purfling etc. None the less violins unlike guitars really do need considerable hand work and with our minimum wage still at least 10 times the Chinese rates I just can't see how it could be done.

Elephant ivory may not NEED a ban but their surely is one. Bringing it into the USA in any amount risks confiscation of the item. Likewise with certain shell species and as far as I have been told the sale of tortoiseshell under any circumstances is subject to legal penalties. With the exception of Pernambuco you are certainly correct that instrument making has a minimal effect on species depletion etc. but the legalities are what concern me not the politics.

Really? More info please. can we see pixtures of the bow itself?