violinsRus

Thanks to this thread and a few month's of patience, I just placed an order with John for a PM-X knife; he's got the steel and is in production. I wanted to share the good news in case there are others who were waiting for the new steel.

you can look here, and search for 'cedar' and you will find some useful input: http://www.darntonviolins.com/violinmagazine/book/wood.pdf It was enough to discourage me from trying a nice piece of cedar I had, even for linings or blocks. Good luck, maybe others have had more success.

I may have found the piece! I can pretty much avoid the dark wood, it's the closest match I've found so far.

sometimes the bow needs to bounce, but controlled of course! Wow, original Pagannini bowing...

If you can get to a shop and try out a bunch of bows it will give you the best results IMHO. That has been my limited experience. For some reason the better bows that don't bounce for me seem to be the higher priced ones! I'm sure there are a lot of variables here, much more than balance point and weight. Even the amount of hair on the bow can change the action.

Wow FC, that is extraordinary! I have a Nurnberger like the OP, and I'll likely just do a thicker thumb wrap and avoid any wood repairs.

I wonder if one side of the belly wood was flipped end-for-end from the same billet, as was/is sometimes done to better match the quarter cut to the arching. Would that be a potential reason for the dendro differences between the two halves? Just conjecture of course...

Yes, kudos to the above mentioned. Don't forget to include the London chap, Martin Swan! Appreciate his input a lot.

sent PM for one of them, thanks.

You are right Julian, I want to at least make an effort to get a one piece back as similar as is reasonable. Varnish and texture is what I see as perhaps the biggest challenge for me in this project. And deciding how far to take the antiquing!

Great exercise, the 5 minute bow. thanks for posting!

Would the mortise of the C bout linings of the Plowden likely be Amati-style fully mortised, Bergonzi angle-cut, or something in between like the color picture below, mortised but clipped at an angle at the end?

this CT scan of the DG Kreisler shown earlier shows significant difference in graduation objectives between back and belly. So it's hard to generalize...

Interesting observation Nathan, and I would have agreed, but I ran across this in Roger Hargrave's 'The Working Methods of Guarneri del Gesù and their Influence upon his Stylistic Development' in the Biddulph book. Not sure if there is a contradiction here... "In fact, the area which is free to vibrate inside the line of the purfling was never worked excessively thin by del Gesu. On the “Stern”, the scooping of the fluting inside the line of the purfling is excessive, to the point where it becomes deeper than the purfling itself. However, del Gesu has compensated by leaving the instrument thicker than normal out to the flanks – especially in the centre bouts, where in places the plate remains up to 4 mm thick to the line of the purfling. Many Amati violins display a similar amount of scooping are very thin inside the purfling. By contrast, del Gesu’s violins more commonly have a stiffness at the edges which is clearly meant to provide greater strength…"

Gotta love that one piece back! Anyone out there with recommendations of a tonewood source to match that stunning piece? I know it's like looking for that needle in the haystack!