Davide Sora

I heard him play a concert here in Cremona this year and on the program was written Stradivari, but I was very close to the stage and I thought visually it was more a Guarneri than Strad. The thing was clarified the day after by this informal test at the museum, my compliments to Kurt, the violin sounded really good!

I don't think that the quality of a varnish lies in the individual components but in the combination of all the components, which are never just one. Shellac varnishes reach a condition of definitive dryness faster (months, unless too much essential oils are part of the mixture) while oil-based ones take longer to reach a definitive state of polymerization / oxidation remaining softer initially but becoming inexorably harder over the years, depending on the quantity of oil and essences used in the recipe. Lot of variables, it's too simplistic to reduce everything to shellac vs oil (or alcohol vs oil if you like), I'm a little bored by these inappropriate clichés.

Squid bridge?

Well, now I'm getting confused too... But to be clear, using a bridge blank does not only mean adapting the feet and the upper curve, but reworking all its surfaces without exception. At least that's what I do and leaving the manufacturer's brand would be an important limitation because it would mean not having the necessary freedom to intervene on every surface as I like. I know that some producers offer the possibility to make bridges blanks finished on a custom design, but i like adapting bridges to the needs of each violin so this rules out this option at least for me.

I put my brand on the bridge, as a guarantee (and responsibility) for having made it personally, unlike others who have the set up made from someone else, a not so remote eventuality on newly made violins. I don't consider it vulgar, but rather refined, I consider it vulgar to leave the manufacturer's brand to indicate that expensive bridge blanks are used. Unless vulgarity is in the design used for the brand....

Out of curiosity, do you round off the linings and then adapt the reinforcements or are the reinforcements continuous and in contact with the rib along the entire height and the linings interrupted?

I think this is the main reason for the success of this type of chinrest, a solid point where clamp pressure does not involve too many risks, even if inadequately strong. Too many violins has wavy or cracked ribs due to the pressure of the side mount chinrest, especially if inappropriately tight clamped for long time. I think that a reinforcement inside the rib would be essential to avoid as much as possible the problem from inappropriate clamping force from these kind of chinrest.

Some time ago I tried a couple of Corene violin fingerboards (Neo-Ebene) kindly provided by the company for a test. I must say that they are made very well and in different sizes with the possibility of custom orders. The main problem with these technological materials is that they have no porosity at all (they are not absorbent in any way) which guarantees a lot of stability but from which the gluing problems derive. They also provide the glue along with each fingerboard, which is just bone glue that should adhere even without physical anchors (pores). The reasons why I still use ebony on my violins are : 1) the gluing problem (if the glue is not appropriate the risk of unglue is real, perhaps also due to the extreme stability to humidity of these material that if the neck moves and if the glue is not well anchored to the fingerboard it will detach even more easily) 2) density slightly higher than ebony (at the same weight and dimension they are less stiff than ebony; to obtain the same stiffness the weight will necessarily be slightly higher due to the fact that there is no air internally because no pores are present) 3) last but not least, the non-absorbent nature of the material means that the surface will be more slippery during playing, which in a fingerboard without metal frets has its importance. In fact the ebony slightly absorbs the humidity giving a feeling of non-slipperiness, this has been pointed out to me by some player, I didn't think about this at first and maybe not all players would notice it. However the accuracy of the work and the quality of the material positively surprised me, if the availability of quality ebony were to stop, I think I would surely try these fingerboards https://www.mycorene.com/ PS they promise they never wear out, but I haven't tested this.

Amado is more spanish or portuguese, in Italian should be Amato (beloved). A relative of my mother had that name, although it is not very common.

Sorry Wolfgang, I didn't forget to mention it but simply I agree more with what Jacob says about soundpost cracks causes. In any case I do not want to claim that your (or others) adjustable soundpost cannot work well if properly used, I really don't know, but simply that I prefer the spruce ones for my violins. Establishing whether one is better than the other in my opinion is not really possible in an objective way as there are too many variables to consider when it comes to judging the final sound and in fact I'm not aware of scientifically reliable studies on this topic. If you have made them, could you tell me where they can be found? I would be interested in knowing them. I confess that in the nineties I was also tempted to build a similar thing to use as a temporary soundpost during the making to induce some deformation (i.e. for neck setting), inspired by that described in the attached patent. Then I never make it but yours would be perfect for this purpose, even if you don't need particular and expensive materials for this function as a tool and not as a final soundpost. cave_soundpost US Patent.pdf

To try to venture a hypothesis it would be necessary to know many other construction details, but in any case I would try to stiffen up the archings, probably raising them rather than increasing the thicknesses in order not to increase the weight too much. Plates weights, shape of the archings, thicknesses, bassbar and so on are all missing data that it would be important to know in detail to make decisions that are already a bit aleatory in themselves.

I've been using them recently, before I used the Wittner steel ones that work very well or at least my violins seem to like them. It seems to me that the titanium ones have the same effects, but with the advantage of a greater diameter of the cable and a greater softness, so more friendly with the ebony of the saddle. I like titanium because it does not cause allergies, I also use it for the mechanics of the strings especially for this reason rather than for the lightness of the material. Knowing about failures and how exactly they occurred is always very interesting (when they happen to others in particular) but sometimes if you don't know the details you risk to reject options improperly, because maybe caused by incorrect use.

Agreed, this is also my way of thinking about these things

It would be interesting to know the exact point in which the wire broke, I had heard of breakages caused by the rigid metal screw protruding from the holes of the tailpiece creating an evident point of weakness, in my opinion the only contraindication of this kind of cables. Absolutely the screws must not protrude from the tailpiece holes. I like these titanium tailgut

I usually get much clearer readings, the M2 peak is very obvious. The position of the microphone is very close to the plate and at the point of maximum amplitude of vibration of the mode and the grip of the plate at the point of greatest cleanliness of the note judged by ear. I use 4096 size, but even at 8192 the peak is really obvious. You can see the result in this video :