Where is the Darnton Varnish recipe????

[Seth_Leigh]

If you wanted you could buy a 50 gram pack and make some Darnton varnish enough for two or three instruments. That wouldn't leave you a whole lot for doing experiments with different colors and whatnot. I've made mastic varnish from 200 grams of mastic so far, and I've done a couple dozen different experiments with pigments and coloration. I made up (and have since discarded) the varnish I used on my first instrument as well. I've got probably 200 cc of clear, unused varnish left from all of this. That's a lot actually. It doesn't take that much to do a violin once it's made up the way you want it to be. It's the experimentation and playing around with different colors and stuff that used up the most varnish for me.

Bottom line: if money's a problem, buy 50 grams. If it's not, buy 100 grams and play around with it and figure out what you are going to do on your instrument before actually varnishing the instrument. If you decide you're going into production, buy 500 grams and have several year's worth of varnish.

ps: I read a post once where Michael said he'd throw any unused varnish from his various experiments into a jar and now he's got this quantity of varnish with who-knows-what for coloring. I didn't discard much of my varnish, actually, I have poured the leftover from most of my experiments and my first violin's varnish into a jar. I have this very dark, opaque quantity of bastard varnish now, that I'm saving for some eventuality where it comes in handy. All this is plus the 200cc of clear varnish is from the varnish I made from 200 grams of mastic.

[BarryD]

Does Michaels varnish skim over if it sits for a while?

[Seth_Leigh]

Not that I've seen, but my jars of clear, before I finally consolidated them, only ever sat for a few months max without being disturbed in some way. But in a few months no, they didn't skim over.

[BarryD]

Seth, thanks for your help with this. When you are at the steep end of the learning curve, like me, there are so many things to sort through as all of you know. I've heard so many good things about Michael's varnish I guess I will have to give it a try even though Michael once wrote in a post,something to the effect, that if he were not such a traditionalist he would use hardware store varnish. The 100 grm. pack will give me enough to do some experiments.

[Bill Yacey]

Sorry about resurfacing this old thread, but how flexible / supple is this mastic varnish after a number of years of drying? Does it wind up fairly brittle, or does it retain some "give"?

The majority of the thread seems to be an argument on how to classify this varnish rather than the actual physical and visual properties of it.

[Mark Sullivan]

Mastic Varnish Experience

[Arsalan]

On 1/8/2005 at 10:14 AM, Michael Darnton said:

Fill a jam jar almost to the top with mastic, and pour in enough turpentine to cover it. Shake this regularly, as often as you can, for a couple of weeks until most of the mastic has dissolved. You DO NOT want to use heat to speed things up, and you don't want the snot that falls out at the bottom. If you use heat, very undesirable things will get dissolved, and you'll have problems.

Let things settle, then pour off some of the dissolved turpentine/mastic. Add raw linseed oil--the most expensive artist's stuff you can buy--in a quantity that you figure [licks finger, sticks it up in the air] will equal about 25-50% of the amount of dissolved *solid* mastic in the solution you're making, and stir the two together.

Add color, paint on violin, dry in sunlight, or under UV lights. The longer this stuff hangs around the shop in the mixed form, the quicker it dries.

Adding a couple of drops of kerosene makes it brush out better, but it's already pretty nice, because mastic is often used as a brushing improver in varnishes.

Don't ask me for exact quantities, because I don't know them.

This recipe works for two specific reasons: most resins require cooking in oil to make a linked oil/resin varnish, and mastic is not one of them. This is extremely obscure (because it falls into the "who cares?" category) information that I dug up in my research (discovering this is why I bothered to try this at all), and most varnish people don't know it, and don't believe me. So don't listen to them: they're just showing you what they don't know when they protest. :-)

Second, mastic is one of the original traditional driers, such a strong one, especially when it's the only other thing in the varnish: it can drag raw oil into drying (imagine Mastic holding a gun to the head of Oil) even though raw oil is one of the slower-drying of the oil choices you can make. After a batch of my varnish has hung around the shop aging for a while, I can varnish at 4PM, put my violin in my lightbox, and the next morning at 9AM I could polish it and string it up, if I had to.

Hello Micheal 

to make this varnish , no heating needed at any step ? …

at third paragraph you wrote , “ add colour “ … 

may I know what do you exactly mean ? What kind of colour ? What process please ? 
 

thank you very much 

[Matthew_Graesch]

So here we are 15 years later.....

I was reading old threads a few weeks ago and came across this one.  I thought I would try some of this varnish for a new project to see how I liked it.  I dissolved mastic in turpentine just as noted and poured some of the liquid into another jar after it had fully dissolved (except the gunk at the bottom) and then added some of the best grade artists linseed I could buy in the quantity described.  

I felt like I did everything exactly as noted in the original recipe post by Michael, but when applied, my product does not dry.....seemingly ever.  It has been most of a week now in the sun, under some UV, and yet it is essentially undried.  Still extremely tacky and not significantly different than it was a few minutes after application to my test strip (an extra piece of rib material).  

Any thoughts are appreciated.  As a complete autodidact, I have found the sealing, ground, varnish aspect to be by far the most challenging thing a few years in.  I still haven't found something that is acceptable.

Thanks

[Michael Darnton]

I stopped recommending it because though I never had a problem, others did. Since it never happened to me, I don't know why.

[Matthew_Graesch]

3 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

I stopped recommending it because though I never had a problem, others did. Since it never happened to me, I don't know why.

OK.  I appreciate the response.  Back to square one then on what to use for varnish........

[Dr. Mark]

Might be your turpentine.  I have some artist's grade distilled turpentine that I don't use because it seemed to be the cause of drying problems.

[Michael Darnton]

Might be worth mentioning that my varnish takes several days to dry, in a UV cabinet. It's not the modern stuff you buy at the hardware store that dries in two hours in the dark.

[David Alex T.]

For me it dried, maybe the primer coating has an effect. But is too weak.

The instrument don't resist to long contact with case/support, the resin is too soft.

 

[bick]

On 1/8/2005 at 12:14 PM, Michael Darnton said:

Fill a jam jar almost to the top with mastic, and pour in enough turpentine to cover it. Shake this regularly, as often as you can, for a couple of weeks until most of the mastic has dissolved. You DO NOT want to use heat to speed things up, and you don't want the snot that falls out at the bottom. If you use heat, very undesirable things will get dissolved, and you'll have problems.

Let things settle, then pour off some of the dissolved turpentine/mastic. Add raw linseed oil--the most expensive artist's stuff you can buy--in a quantity that you figure [licks finger, sticks it up in the air] will equal about 25-50% of the amount of dissolved *solid* mastic in the solution you're making, and stir the two together.

Add color, paint on violin, dry in sunlight, or under UV lights. The longer this stuff hangs around the shop in the mixed form, the quicker it dries.

On 1/8/2005 at 2:00 PM, Michael Darnton said:

Mastic dissolved in turps with the addition of raw oil isn't generally referred to at all. I've never seen any reference to this as a painting or varnishing material--have you got one? :-)

I do not see much difference between what you describe and what Joseph Michelman describes in his book for Preparation 33.  He also mentions using older linseed oil for faster drying.  From the book:
 

Quote

"The mastic was powdered and 40gms. of the resin were dissolved in 60 cc of turpentine in the cold with occasional shaking over a period of three days. The nearly clear solution was decanted from the gummy residue; clarification is unnecessary. The solution contained 41% solids by weight. The linseed oil is added to this solution, which became turbid; the precipitate settles in two weeks and a clear varnish results. It is preferable to use old or aged linseed oil to hasten drying and to prevent flowage.

This varnish is stable in solution indefinitely. Its films require three to four days to dry to the touch; exposure to the sun accelerates the drying. A varnish with one-half the linseed oil dried in two days, but was somewhat brittle. The forgoing preparation was repeated using No. 6 boiled linseed oil (Chapter VII); a very turbid, thick mixture resulted and its film remained tacky for seven days for some reason."

The only difference I see is that Michelman says to let it sit after adding the linseed oil, something that is unclear to me if is done in Mr. Darnton's process.

Michelman's preparation is mastic resin, turpentine, and linseed oil mixed without heat. The Darnton varnish is about the same to my eye.  My mentor told me of his varnish, the Fulton terpene varnish slightly modified to reduce the linseed oil present.

However, the Fulton varnish is cooked, but is essentially made only from turpentine; in resin (rosin) and liquid (thickened) forms, with linseed oil.  It intrigued me and I noted the similarities with what I learned from my mentor and a number of posters on this forum who list similar ingredients in their varnishes. 

Tree resins and turpentine are chemically similar, are derived from the same / similar sources, and to me would be much like the Fultonvarnish in that aspect. It seems that in one way, you are using the rosin and thickened turpentine , or you're using mastic and turpentine - both natural resins from trees.

Harvesting crude (gum) turpentine is similar to harvesting mastic in the sense of harming a tree to get the material out. The difference to me that mastic trees have solidified excretions, while pine trees are more liquid. Pine trees also grow straighter, and mastic comes from low, twisted, shrubby trees. With turpentine, you boil it to get rosin and gum spirits of turpentine. Turpentine has many uses, and would make sense that these products would be kept separately, and mix them a needed. All of this is to say that the benefit being one could take the turpentine, and dissolve other tree resins into it.

I should note that today's turpentine is not the same as older turpentines, as they are derived from different tree species, but the process is largely the same at this point in my understanding.  I also am testing the differences with thickened vs. Venetian vs. gum spirits of turpentine to observe any differences as I believe all might yield similar results.

Anyway. Saw this and happened to be reading the book again as part of my research. I saw the dots and figured I would connect them if they haven't already. I am curious of they make a picture for anyone else. Maybe this is common knowledge, but at least wanted to collect it together with this thread since its the first one that comes up for "Darnton Varnish".

I got down this track because I was thinking of ways to make simpler vanishes, and assumed that something simple would be more likely to have been used in the past than more complicated modern recipes.  Even Michelman specifically mentions his sources from back in the mid 1500's in chapter 5 and 13. I have been  attempting to understand how they would have done it back then.  I (naively) figured that there would have involved a number of uses from a single product, rather than getting disparate resins and chemicals and bringing them together. I think I might be partially right, since the key seems to be dissolving tree resins into turpentine. I also was researching Venetian turpentine in comparison to Fulton's thickened turpentine.

Please correct me where if I have mis-represented anything here.

R

Edited September 3 by bick
fuller -> fulton

[LCF]

I believe you mean "Fulton" where you are writing "Fuller".

Fulton's polyterpene resin is not the same as natural rosin. 

[bick]

Thank you for the correction.

"Rosin" is the broad name of the solid product remaining from boiling crude turpentine, my apologies for the confusion.

I guess my original intention was to point out the similarities between Darnton Varnish and the Preparation 33.

I still am studying Crude Turpentine and its derivatives, but am a layman pointing out similarities that I see in hopes of learning more.

Edited September 3 by bick

[Urban Luthier]

On 9/2/2024 at 10:39 PM, bick said:

I do not see much difference between what you describe and what Joseph Michelman describes in his book for Preparation 33. 

I made the Darton / Michelman 33 a few years back. I did exactly what Michael suggested and it turned out exactly as he said it would. It made a really nice looking varnish. But it was very soft and wore quite easily. 

[FiddleBasher]

I'm thinking about attempting to make some of this varnish, i have made 1704 spirit varnish. My question is as I'm a complete beginner to violin making and varnishing, should I avoid this until I have gained more experience? 

[Davide Sora]

The sooner you start, the more experience you will have; if you wait until you are experienced enough, you may never start. Philosophy aside, it doesn't seem like a very complex varnish. It is probably a good one to start with to gain experience with oil varnishes.

[bick]

14 minutes ago, Davide Sora said:

The sooner you start, the more experience you will have; if you wait until you are experienced enough, you may never start.

I think this is the best advice on this board. Thank you Davide. 

41 minutes ago, FiddleBasher said:

My question is as I'm a complete beginner to violin making and varnishing, should I avoid this until I have gained more experience? 

Everyone is a beginner at some point, and even then there was a time when experts didn't know what they know now, or even go against something they did previously in favor of their current practice. The quickest way to learn is to do to. 

[FiddleBasher]

Thank you David and Bick. Sooner I start Sooner I gain experience. It sounded a bit complicated, but on reading it a few times it's not that complicated. Thank you all again for good advice. 

[FiddleMkr]

On 1/8/2005 at 3:19 PM, Michael Darnton said:

I strip with acetone, but all oil varnishes are alcohol soluble if you leave it on long enough--more when aged than new, though (that's too slow for me, either way).

I've left violins in my lightbox for weeks with no change.

Do you know why oil varnishes (also) are alcohol soluble when dry? 
      [I found this out the hard way but still don’t understand it.] 

[David Burgess]

FiddleMkr, substances will often soften or dissolve in solvents which were not a part of their original formulation.

[MikeC]

Linseed oil will become soluble in alcohol eventually after it is fully oxydised and polymerized.  It's called linoxin. 

 So it makes sense that an oil varnish would eventually be soluble in alcohol.   I don't know chemistry though so I can't say why.   

[FiddleBasher]

Will Artist quality refined linseed oil work? Michael says raw linseed oil so maybe the raw part of the oil is needed.