William Posted April 12, 1998 Report Share Posted April 12, 1998 About a week ago I mixed some rosin and alcohol to use as sealer for a violin. It took a day or two for the entire cake of rosin to desolve. It wasn't until about 3 days ago that I began to seal the violin with the rosin. When I stired the mixture I noticed that it had lumps forming in it. The lumps were about the size of a grain of sand and hadn't been there earlier. I brushed the finish on and it looked good and dried proporly but it didn't dry smooth. It also raises the grain so before you apply the rosin you should rub the entire violin with a damp rag, let the violin dry then sand the raised grain smooth. You should also mix the rosin with alcohol a day or two before you are planning on sealing the violin. Also I found that the rosin looks best when it is just thick enough so that it doesn't entirely soak into the wood. The rosin doesn't look as good if it is so thin that the first coat soaks entirely into the wood. Also you should only use one coat of rosin to seal the wood, if you try to build up a finish with the rosin you will have a cloudy finish. Tomorrow I will string up the violin and see if the rosin hurts the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADean Posted April 12, 1998 Report Share Posted April 12, 1998 I always thought that one should never sand the outside of the instrument before the first coat of varnish, as that will tear the grain. In fact, isn't the only sanded surface on an entire violin supposed to be between coats? ADean : About a week ago I mixed some rosin and alcohol to use as sealer for a violin. It took a day or two for the entire cake of rosin to desolve. It wasn't until about 3 days ago that I began to seal the violin with the rosin. When I stired the mixture I noticed that it had lumps forming in it. The lumps were about the size of a grain of sand and hadn't been there earlier. I brushed the finish on and it looked good and dried proporly but it didn't dry smooth. It also raises the grain so before you apply the rosin you should rub the entire violin with a damp rag, let the violin dry then sand the raised grain smooth. You should also mix the rosin with alcohol a day or two before you are planning on sealing the violin. : Also I found that the rosin looks best when it is just thick enough so that it doesn't entirely soak into the wood. The rosin doesn't look as good if it is so thin that the first coat soaks entirely into the wood. Also you should only use one coat of rosin to seal the wood, if you try to build up a finish with the rosin you will have a cloudy finish. : Tomorrow I will string up the violin and see if the rosin hurts the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted April 12, 1998 Report Share Posted April 12, 1998 : I always thought that one should never sand the outside of the instrument before the first coat of varnish, as that will tear the grain. In fact, isn't the only sanded surface on an entire violin supposed to be between coats? : ADean ADean The process of sanding is wherein fine particles of relatively small size actually shear or "tear" the material actually being sanded. Paul : : About a week ago I mixed some rosin and alcohol to use as sealer for a violin. It took a day or two for the entire cake of rosin to desolve. It wasn't until about 3 days ago that I began to seal the violin with the rosin. When I stired the mixture I noticed that it had lumps forming in it. The lumps were about the size of a grain of sand and hadn't been there earlier. I brushed the finish on and it looked good and dried proporly but it didn't dry smooth. It also raises the grain so before you apply the rosin you should rub the entire violin with a damp rag, let the violin dry then sand the raised grain smooth. You should also mix the rosin with alcohol a day or two before you are planning on sealing the violin. : : Also I found that the rosin looks best when it is just thick enough so that it doesn't entirely soak into the wood. The rosin doesn't look as good if it is so thin that the first coat soaks entirely into the wood. Also you should only use one coat of rosin to seal the wood, if you try to build up a finish with the rosin you will have a cloudy finish. : : Tomorrow I will string up the violin and see if the rosin hurts the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Posted April 13, 1998 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 1998 I've never heard it said that wood shouldn't be sanded before finishing. I always sand my instruments and haven't had any problems. If you do sand the wood prior to finishing you should get the wood as smooth as possible. There might be problems if you sanded the wood with 100 grit sand paper then tried to finish the wood. 100 grit sand paper would leave the wood so rough that it would soak up a lot of finish. When sanding wood you should remove all the marks from heaver grits of sand paper. Most finishes recommend that you sand the wood with 220 grit sand paper prior to finishing but I usually go to 400 or higher grits to make sure that the surface is as smooth as possible and will soak up the least amount of finish. I wouldn't recommend sanding the rosin before aplying varnish because it would be easy to sand through the thin layer of rosin. The spots where you had sanded through the rosin would stick out like a sore thumb. When I was sealing this violin with the rosin I accidentally missed a spot and after I brushed finish on top of it the place I had missed was easy to find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Posted April 13, 1998 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 1998 Prior to finishing this violin had good tone on the G, D, and A strings, but the E string had a thin tone to it. After finishing the G string had a slightly deeper richer tone, the D and A strings stayed about the same and the E string lost its thin tone. I'm not sure if the rosin changed the tone more or less than varnish because this is the first violin that I have played both in the white and after finishing. But the rosin did noticably change the tone for the better. If you have a violin that already sounds good in the white I wouldn't recommend that you use the rosin on it because it could make the tone dull. In a month or two I will be able to tell you if the rosin hurts the tone more or less than oil varnish or water based polyurethane. I'm about to make several violins at the same time. I will play all these violins in the white and after finishing and report back to you on how each of them affects the tone of these violins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bharat Kandekar Posted May 22, 1998 Report Share Posted May 22, 1998 : Try disolving the rosin in terpentine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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