Jim Bress

Along similar lines, on my last instrument I established a base color by first rubbing on a thin uncolored shellac coat followed by two brush coats of the same shellac colored with a catechu tincture. I put my oil varnish over this.

Very cool! Would love to see pictures if you have them. Thanks, Jim

Much higher stakes than myself but was also some what relieved when I lost my bid for ANTONIO STRADIVARI - THE CREMONA EXHIBITION OF 1987 by Charles Beare. I would love to have the book, but I have uses for my money as well.

If enough "weird" people get together we become the new norm. I put a N. Amati (inspired) scroll on my last Strad based violin. Guess which direction my prefrence is progressing. -Jim

I thought it was made from weasel hair, or is that just kolinsky red sable (Mustela sibirica)?

As much as I can tell with same color tracing, One side has a thinner shoulder, c-bout and hip than the other. Is it the treble side? In other words, is it possible for some of the asymmetry to be intentional?

Stephen, What about a maker's co-op? A large space/studio shared by 4 or 5 maker's sharing the rent. -Jim

I remember eating at The Home Run Inn growing up. The line would go around the block just to get in. My cousin worked there for a while and learned to make pizza their way. Still my bench mark for good pizza. Unfortunately they're a chain now. Not the same, but my cousin still makes a pretty mean pizza. -Jim

What kind of blade do you use?

Never mind, I just found your email in my spam folder that answers the question. "Many thanks for your recent order; please find our invoice enclosed with this message. This time we did not produce a mould for the violin, since this is very similar to the P and PG housed in the Museo del Violino. However we are developing a 3d print technique for the plates."

Hello and welcome to maestronet. This is very good news! Will you be making a form and templates as you did with the Amati viola? -Jim

About time (bench thread)! Looking forward to more. Cheers, Jim

The botanist arguments come from past vs. present forms of taxonomic identification, and the definition (and arguments) of what is a species. I think every field likes to dive into the minutia that people outside that field could care less about. I won't dribble on about the different arguments because for our purposes (instrument making) there's no functional difference between black and sugar maple. Ok, can't help myself. Below is an old paper that uses the old style arguments, basically observable macro morphology. Whereas newer taxonomist are more interest in the microbiology of reproduction and genetics. I think the arguments for a variety which is more related than a subspecies works best. However, in the end it doesn't really matter. -Jim Morphological Differences Between Black Maple and Sugar Maple and Their Hybrids.pdf

I'm not familiar with all the maples, but I can talk about some without data mining google. Sugar and Black maple are closely related and there is disagreement among botanist on whether they are the same species or if black maple is a sub species of sugar maple. Regardless they freely hybridize and have nearly the same home range. Silver maple has a reputation as being weak wooded and older specimens often break during windstorms. In the Northern part of their range they seem to be more robust so some wood may be usable. Mike Jones harvested some a while back so he may have a comment on silver maple from up north. Mountain maple and striped maple are under-story trees with a lot of similarities and have the same range. I don't think they hybridize, but could be wrong. In any case too small for our uses. I have one billet of red maple on my shelf that I will probably use for my next violin. The SG on that piece is 0.55. My two coppers. -Jim

Hi Henry, Looks like your best yet! In the profile pic (3rd pic) it looks like you increased the rib height from the bottom corners to the bottom block. Looks a bit odd, but its probably just a picture illusion with the lower bout being closer the camera. -Jim