charliemaine

A diamond in the rough? Another white violin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XECwQ2X59o

Some of the best players that I've heard in Weiser are contest fiddlers who are judged accordingly. Many well known professionals have passed though Weiser and other state and national contests in their early careers like Byron Berline, Herman Johnson, Marc O'Connor, Darol Anger to name just a few. They had to work hard to perform at that level. Practice and natural ability makes perfect or pretty damn close and exposure to other high level players makes you want to practice more. Keep working hard Nick and don't beat yourself up.

SOLD

I've tried StewMac's torrified Sitka spruce twice and it turned out to be too dense. The first one had cracks and they replaced it with a second one. I asked to send me the lightest one they had. and it was still too dense.

Kev D, I've used their master grade spruce and it's excellent. Don't know anything about their torrefied wood. Like Don said shipping to US is expensive but you're paying for a sanitary certificate as well as the actual shipping cost. Another option is Rausch Tonewood, they sell spruce and complete maple sets from Tonewood of Switzerland. I find buying from Rausch a better alternative because they supply pictures and measurements of the actual pieces. T of S is called Florinett AG on Rausch's site. https://rauchtonewood.com/

Thanks! I've always admired your Mando's, beautiful clean work.

What do you use to finish your mando necks?

Priceless!

Good one! I went into the salon and told them I wanted to bring in my mistress for an hour,... she's just too white. After fetching her from the car they laughed. Turn's out an hour didn't change the color that much.

Funny, reminds me of when I took a violin to a tanning salon and rented a bed for an hour.

The change you meant was from oxidizing due to storing and not from some chemical reaction during the cooking process. That's good to know. I store my varnish in small bottles and once opened the varnish is mostly used up and transfered to another. Thanks for clarifying. Good to know there's no secret turpentine club.

I haven't tried it but It would definitely behave differently than cooked varnish. Be interesting to try...just make sure your oil drys.

Thanks for clarifying. As I mentioned earlier I have no concerns either thinning varnish with fresh turpentine. Proper storage is the key. Once the jar is opened and exposed to air then turpentine, on it's own or in varnish will naturally start to oxidize. I guess if you're diligent and keep the jar topped off or remove the air then it will prolong the turp. What David said next was most interesting to me about how the change will still happen. Funny...Joe Robson has mentioned many times about when and how much to add turpentine into the cook and how it controls certain properties of the varnish. So your comment reminded me of Joe saying similar things. First and foremost Joe always warned of the dangers too.

Hello, It would be foolish on my part to draw any conclusions. I'm merely curious to find out more about turpentine introduced into a cooked resin and oil varnish from those with the chemistry knowlegde. The "interesting stuff" part you mention about cooking it into varnish and your concern about sharing what you've been priveledged to is easy to understand when you consider the danger involved. It does sound like you're saying that turp must be heated to the dangerous level when cooked into varnish rather than just warmed and added like most do. And this is probably where the interesting things happen that make turpentine change properties and make it stable? I have to assume then that those of us who make varnish and are not priviledged to this information are not getting the same results and possibilities. With this shared knowledge you say that you have zero long term concerns about the long term stability, what about those who don't have that understanding, it is reasonable then to say that unless one knows how to incorporate turpentine into varnish cooking these stability changes will not happen and the varnish will continue to change? You must agree that turpentine on its own as a solvent changes with age. And adding oxidized turp to thin a varnish is not a good thing. So if it takes special measures to make tupentine stable that's great. That's all I really wanted to know. Thanks for your thoughts.

Me too, Thanks. I've made solvent free varnish before. Now I need to learn how to keep myself long term...