Dominik Tomasek

New 16inch antiqued Stainer model viola. Varnished using glazing technique. Beech wood back.

As mentioned above, the only violin making school is the one situated in Cheb, that is mentioned by Jacob. One can also become an apprentice with a violin maker who has finished his formal violin making studies and after several years and after recieving refferals from the violin maker, one can apply for a trade license at Trade Licensing Register. But that means you end up with trade license only without any diploma. Also the success of this unoficial way is not guaranteed...

Thank you, Shelbow. The violin is varnished using glazing technique. The colour itself is achieved by layering transparent indian brown oil paint. Transparent indian brown by Koh-i-noor has got awfuly orange colour once applied in single layer, but with adding more layers the colour changes into something beautifuly reddish-brown.

A bit more of the details, antiquing and varnish texture.

Dear maestronetters, I have decided to start my own bench thread since I had never shown my work here on the forum before. Still experimenting with the varnish though... I enclose pictures of my recent instrument after Guarneri del Gesù. Antiqued oil varnish. Thanks!

Very appealing - thank you for posting again!

Lovely varnish Michael! Did you mix the oil paint right into the Tru-oil or did you apply it any other way? Thanks!

It indeed is. Using beech for the ribs is perfect. It cuts like butter and bending it is beyond easy. The look under varnish is quite appealing too. I do also have very good experience with using quatered beech for small viola backs. The plate generally needs to be a bit thinner than maple back, but it gives the instrument sort of deeper sound as you can even hear in del Gesú's Terminator for example.

Evan, since the first time I have seen the viola I am wondering how it sounds? Thanks!

There are colour extracts made by JOHA in various colours including black. I used these to colour my clear varnish (oil/spirit) with great success... https://www.joha.eu/de/farbstoffe/farbextrakt/farbextrakt-schwarz?c=305

How much and in what state (as is/dissolved) did you add the lime?

Dear Giovanni, is it possible to tell the thicknesses of the front and the back? Thanks D.

Dear RobertL, did you use the W&N dammar varnish straight out of the bottle? I once, from no obvious reason but mainly as an experiment, tried to use Umton Dammar varnish (used for varnishing paintings obviously) but with no luck. Although it dried fairly quickly and seemed to be hard enough, I could not touch the instrument as the heat of my hand made the varnish sticky almost immediately.

Seems to be based on del Gesú's Messeas, am I right? Nice work Tets!

Dear Melvin, I have always found your work to be endless source of inspiration and I am unhappy to see that you no longer post your truly amazing work into this thread. Do you please by any chance consider posting into your "MN bench" again? Thanks Dominik