Dominik Tomasek

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

What makes you think that, Nathan? Thanks Dominik

This is my favourite video about violin making. François Perrin making an exceptional viola.

Dear DavidS, what is the fingerboard projection? From one of your photos it seems to me that it is rather low.

I do opt for beech. It is not similar to any plain maple I've worked with but it strongly reminds me of beech I used to either scrolls or back plates of my small violas.

Not exactly related to violins (at least I hope so) but my teacher used to have this conversation with me all the time - "How are you?" I asked..."It is bearable" he replied.

From what I can see there are two different (?) instruments in the OP. If not I am confused! Anyway I agree with HoGo that the instrument in the first picture has got beech back. Not quatre sawn but beech. I have been quite successful with using beech in small viola backs, they give the instrument quite warm sound but also a bit of a weight. As HoGo says there is a famous Del Gesú violin with beech back and also there is a Paolo Testore viola with back plate of the same wood.

I once tried to make spirit varnish using colophony but without success.The varnish was brittle and sticky, I also tried to add a bit of damar which is partially soluble in alcohol but without any success either.

I agree with Martin. It seems he had a factory producing zithers, accordions and probably also violins but he mainly ran a shop selling these. The text on the right side of the label states: "Production of all musical instruments".

I am very well aware that violins made from alternative wood species are rare and personally I've abandoned experimenting with different woods when building violins. But for violas it is a different story. I have been quite succesfully using beech for the back of my small violas. Personally I do not prefer the sound of quater cut maple back viola. I lean towards poplar, willow etc. That's why I was thinking about using Paulownia. There is nothing left to do but to try I guess. Dominik

Dear maestronetters, does anyone have any experience with paulownia wood? I have been searching the forum but found nothing regarding using the wood for the back plate, only for blocks. From what I've found out it seems that it has somewhat similar properties as poplar. Am I right, or did I misunderstand? I was thinking about using paulownia for small viola back. Thanks Dominik

Well, at least you found a gap in the market...