Jim Bress

The bow wood is South African, so I guess I was sticking to the continental theme. I couldn't quite make any particular bird species work for the bow head (beak).

The pictures are great. Wow...um...wow. Definitely new. When I look at the frog my brain says hippo. I think we need more background story on this one.

For inter-annual variation of late growth density, higher temperatures with lower precipitation at the beginning (August/September for Picea?) of the late growth period are positively correlated in the literature. However, if all your late growth is unusually dense you would have to speculate if specific growing conditions (micro-climate) and genetics favored dense late growth.

Thanks for the pics Janito. The antiquing / varnish looks very nice, and shows off the many hands that went into this work well.

I do. As you say, for plane irons only (block and bench). With a thin 150 mm steel rule.

Tormek makes them. A guide came with my tormek 2000 from a Craigslist purchase. I think I opened the box once to look at it (maybe).

It’s concave down the length of the fingerboard. Excuse the poor one hand balance act pic.

No, there’s a longitudinal scoop along the fingerboard to control the amount of string buzz during pizz on cello fingerboards (as I understand it). I’ve never shaped a cello fingerboard. On violin and viola the scoop eliminates string buzz against the fingerboard.

Projection is correct, but your ruler/straight edge needs to be long enough to go from the nut end of the fingerboard to the bridge otherwise the scoop can through off your measurement. Oops, Nathan already said that.

Thanks Don, good answer. -Jim

Right or wrong, I have some thought models that make sense to me on how additional mass in the center works. However, the heavier - more flexible bass bar leaves me perplexed. What is trying to be achieved by increasing weight without increasing (or decreasing?) stiffness in the bass bar?

Psst...Alberti peg shapers back in production.

Just to add to the confusion, have you looked at the LN no. 7 1/2 for $350?

I definitely agree about the difficulty of photographing varnished instruments. It's strange that I don't see what I was talking about it now. Maybe I was using a different monitor. Previously I couldn't see the browns in the "worn" areas. It appeared stark like freshly planed wood. I'm blaming the monitor (instead of me being crazy). Beautiful work.

Looks really great Dave! One thing that stands out for me is that the worn varnish areas look too clean. Maybe that's the next stage? -Jim