violinsRus

priceless, I would say!

Yes, that is my experience. and if one is tempted to turn the screw with any force, it will split the stick pretty quickly, believe you me! I am now much more careful.

1735 Plowden A classic for sure.

I claim booby prize for identifying apocryphal label...

Charles Jacquot?

unique neck graft job at the heel!

well said Don.

to add fuel to the fire, is there anything in the example below that might be useful as an analogy to what reguz is trying to tell us? Note the recurve in the saw; I know it makes it sound better. the arching changes in a violin belly due to string tension are of course much less than what the player has to do here, and the wood in the plates is not like steel. Maybe we've been over this territory before!

Some instruments are also fickle with humidity, and perhaps reguz you are seeing rather changes between dry and moist days. I am not saying that you cannot alter the tone by removing varnish or 0.1mm of wood on the inside in specific spots, but I don't see how this can be called changing stress conditions. Aren't you rather removing mass, or changing elasticity/rigidity of the plate in a particular area?

You could also just make a Plowden DG copy, at 350mm or so it's heading toward 7/8. Certainly a short 4/4 model, that has been well studied and copied countless times.

my father used to make wine from them. You could try that and have a great time doing it. One of his bottles exploded, an enduring family joke for decades. Never seen it used for a wood stain...

i have had much more success grinding down those sharp and shiny walnut lake crystals with a mortar and pestle, and then mulling them into oil after they were powder. Mulling is the last step, maybe others have different experiences. Or maybe you have a power muller? good luck.

Violin is finished and returned to owner. Tone was nothing special, and based on article here I can confirm that especially the back and ribs were thick, in spite of nicely executed edge work and slender scroll. Without fittings it was over 400 grams. Fabulous maple though, and nice varnish job. I believe he also 'sprung' the bassbar, as the belly had a repaired crack at the bar and distortion up on the bass side. Just conjecture of course. https://tarisio.com/cozio-archive/cozio-carteggio/william-wilkanowski/

not sure what you mean by 'bridge tuning', but the job of fitting a bridge involves removing wood from many critical places on the bridge blank, and most of that effort is to improve the sound the violin produces. You can't just slap a bridge blank on a belt sander and expect it to have the same outcome as a job done with sharp tools, care and precision, and a wealth of experience. I'm still just learning...

I have a neck/scroll with a distinctive transition from the flat fingerboard area to the peg box, where it rises up. I have not seen this before. I also have an old junk violin with the scroll broken that has this same feature. Have others seen this? tx