Michael Darnton

Idly wondering if the person who designed the templates forgot that he should have been working off the bottom of the scoop rather than the bottom of the plate. . . .

The Grizzly riser might work: https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-riser-block-kit-for-g0555lx-g0555la35/t25555?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAsIGrBhAAEiwAEzMlCze_xIZiV6WqCWqdQg6f2pWsCUvkrzD1OocFqo_YQtym4ZznwHPuhxoCtdkQAvD_BwE Your main problem is not going to be motor power, it will be tension. A deep blade requires very high tension to keep it from flexing even a tiny bit. Real resaws have ungodly tension. If you don't have tension, the blade tries to bend backwards, but spins sideways instead and cuts out through the side of the wood in an arc. The tension on the blade is less the wider the blade is, at equivalent spring tension. Some bandsaw articles have suggested very thin (front to back) blades for this reason-that the tension available in a small saw can keep a small blade stiff enough to not twist in resawing and that this is a better choice. There was an article about this in Fine Woodworking mag long before many of you were born. I did this when I was a guitar maker with a very cheap 10" two wheel saw. I dropped a short length of 3" diameter pipe in to extend the cutting depth to 10 inches and used it to resaw maple guitar backs with a 1/4" inch blade. As others have mentioned, big, wide teeth are needed, as few as possible, in skip-tooth style, so that chips can clear. On that saw a 1/2" blade was a disaster. When I got my 14" Grizzly I continued this idea of using 1/4" or even 3/16" skip tooth blades for resawing at maximum blade tension, and it does work very well.

It would be interesting to see a universally-accepted model for the bridge. In my model, the bridge is a filter and I aim for zero flexibility and zero weight as a start, adjusting from there if/as necessary. . . assuming a wood bridge in the standard model and material.... I might feel differently with other materials.

Internal stresses can cause a blade to do this when newly ground or ground back a ways. Just hone the curl off, and you may have to do it a couple of times over a couple of days, but it will quickly stabilize and be fine after that.

A blurry D string is *usually* an indication that the post could be both tighter and closer to the bridge. But you need to be able to do the job well so that it fits properly.

So frustrating to see players over and over again approaching simple adjustment issues by spending a fortune on different strings when a five minute visit to a good shop for a post adjustment would fix a problem.

After this discussion I ordered some of the Woodland Strings peg compound on Etsy, the three-pack kit--but only got around to trying it today. It is BY FAR the best peg compound I have ever used. My first test was a violin with slipping pegs and just a tiny dab of the hard version made them turn like they were floating in thick, sticky grease. So perfect. The second violin had clean white bare pegholes and the pegs were sticking and rough. A tiny dab of the medium mix and they worked exactly the same as the other violin: perfectly. Honestly, the stuff is a miracle. I'm done using anything else. You can't buy it right now. I just bought the last two full sets. I'm sure more will show up eventually. :-)

This is really beating a dead horse, but if makers would just listen to players, who know a LOT more about their own instruments, they'd understand that instruments do change with time, both short term effects (warming up daily) and long term. But I guess you guys know better even though a lot of you are virtually deaf and only hear through theories and FFT. Anders, there is definitely a permanent change over time. When I worked at WH Lee setting up all their instruments I'd put the posts a mm or two inside final position and cut them slightly more pointed. A month or so later I'd come back and pull them out and they'd fit. What appeared to be happening what that the plates were puffing out a bit and thus the slope near the post became more steep. Always six months later I want to see previously un-set-up instruments again for potentially a completely new post. Of course anyone who has ever worked on old instruments KNOWS the varied and many ways their shapes consistently change over time, so there should be no disagreement here, either. John Masters (where is John these days, anyway) told me that using his computer violin model he'd decided that given a lot of flexibility that wood doesn't really have the plate arches would theoretically tend to migrate to curtate cycloid shapes--that this seemed to be the shape that best neutralized the forces involved--and that was why he gave some credibility to the idea that this might make a good idealized arch. In my setup work I have noticed that you can get a lot of tonal mileage out of imagining how the various parts of the instrument deal with the idea of preloading so that certain tensions seem to be reduced when the instrument is strung up, and conversely you can find places where the instrument seems to need to reach a certain distortion under tension and then stop decisively (which I visualize as postloading to completion--I don't know if there's an engineering term for that) so they don't flap around, relatively speaking, and ruin everything.

Everyone likes to think they're special, but keep in mind that one only knows what one knows. Just because one person doesn't hear something it doesn't mean that there's nothing to be heard.

Beyond wood hardness, don't forget the important additional factors of top thickness and the strength of the arching. You can't do anything about wood hardness, but these two are under the maker's direct control. Also, your personal tastes may not be the universal standard, though I do understand where you're coming from. The "baroque" in your name may be the clue there. The "Chicago" in my location may indicate a different commercial requirement. ("Chicago, Home of the World's Loudest Orchestra", as they used to say in another shop I worked in.) About 10% of the time I find cellos where I can't fit the post as tightly as I'd like and feel like if I kept pulling I could pull the post right out to the f-hole and take it out, but I couldn't divide them new vs old. That's always a bad sign, tonally, for my usual customers' tastes and therefore for me. Not because of the post tension I can achieve, but because of how these instruments invariably perform. I think if you have to depend on the post to hold the top up you may be doing something wrong. . . I think.

Yes, great, and thank you!

This.

@violinnewb Presumably the sound moving three inches of air to the player's ear will not be too much affected by humidity in that air, nor will the physical feel of playing the instrument (bow vs string) be affected by the surrounding wet air. Which is not to say that humidity in the air doesn't play an effect the farther the ears (i.e., in the audience) from the instrument. But there are definite effects beyond the ability of air to transmit and dampen sound. That I can adjust out many close-up effects, and correct the varying tensions of the post under the influence of different humidities (something which can be felt through the post setter) does confirm that the instrument itself is changing, and this needs to be addressed, and can be. And there are also characteristics that aren't directly humidity-in-the-air based, but which are purely post tension issues which necessarily change when the instrument/post relationship changes under different influences of the weather, and these can be adjusted completely, as needed. If what's required is to make you sound like you're slogging through mud, I can do that in the middle of the driest winter. . . if that's what you want. No humidity required. There are many different things going on here beyond water in the air. But yes, water in the air also has an effect. I'm still waiting for someone to define their personal use of the word "response". I know a couple of different ones, myself, and am always looking for more.

Whomever you decide to use, it's best to send GOOD photos first. That might finish everything right there. Some experts are remarkably good working with pictures and know whether it's worth the fuss to go farther, though they won't want to give a final opinion without seeing the actual instrument. And you might also be surprised to discover that your chosen expert might be in your area sooner or later--these people get around.

The takeaway from this should be that people who do not know what they are doing should not be doing what they do. The problem here isn't the soundpost.