Michael_Molnar

Here is a quick shot before I pack it for Joe Thrift's workshop. Getting camera colors right is a pain.

The manganese in the pigment becomes a natural drier.

I don't think you want a pristine one unless you are looking at graduations. The worn areas tell us a lot about the varnish process.

I will send you a private message.

I am looking forward to this workshop. Who else is going?

E pur si muove

I don't want to pile on, but I do want to share my thoughts. I used to be an avid, meticulous plate tuner until I realized the results were dubious. I now use just M5 to tell me when to stop graduating. The pattern shape sometimes exposes lurking problems. Anything beyond that is useless in my experience. Although I never won an award, I think that my limited use of plate tuning is not the issue. I am focusing on setup nowadays and I am told there is an improvement. Stay Tuned

I do not use sandpaper to finish spruce. I use a scraper without a burr. I scrape parallel to the annular rings. The scraper may be tilted to get the right cutting action. Do a search on MN to see what the real experts do. I think I am copying them. At least I hope so.

Yes, but Violet is much better. The blue will make it darker more so than violet.

I have very little experience with larch turpentine in making varnish. Can anyone share their experiences? Namely, how do you blend it and cook it into your varnish? How does it dry? Does it change color? I find it to be a very different animal in the zoo of varnish ingredients.

With all of this focus on a yellow base, I'd like to point out that you will need a magenta varnish to make the end result red. Using a red varnish will produce orange.

Way cool!

As I said, B&G and others observed leakage of colored varnish into the pores, but this was not what they meant as a pore filler. The big clue is that these materials appear different under UV.

The answer is a bit complex. It is not just absorption of acoustical energy but also the lack of generating it at those frequencies. The entire body is the source. This complex structure favors emitting at certain frequencies over others. Yes, there will be some structures that absorb energy and re-emit at another frequency. Your question is the 64 million dollar question that when answered could lead to a better violin.

Well said.