Which pigment?

[Michael K.]

The attached picture and video shows Ha-Na Chang with her Guadagnini Cello. The color of the varnish shows a nice light amber which can varies a lot under different color of light and remember me a bid of the "Goore-Booth" Strad Cello.

This color is rarely used today by contemporary makers and shows not much for "madder-lake" fans. The right ground is important follow by....?

What an amazing performance! (Headphones and listen).

[Oded Kishony]

actually this color can be easily achieved using madder in alcohol.

You are right, modern taste is for a darker color on instruments.

Oded Kishony

[Nicolas Temino]

Something like this?

This is the colour I have in the violin I have just finished. Oil varnish.

I love the colour of the old instruments.

[Oded Kishony]

not too long ago I was commissioned to build a violin with the specific request to match the color a piece of old maple furniture.

OK

[Michael_Molnar]

Nice varnish, Nicolas. Quite beautiful.

Mike

[Melvin Goldsmith]

The Guad colour is in some currently available commercial violin varnishes if I am not mistaken...

[joerobson]

The attached picture and video shows Ha-Na Chang with her Guadagnini Cello. The color of the varnish shows a nice light amber which can varies a lot under different color of light and remember me a bid of the "Goore-Booth" Strad Cello. This color is rarely used today by contemporary makers and shows not much for "madder-lake" fans. The right ground is important follow by....? What an amazing performance! (Headphones and listen).

Michael, Here is a cello I did with this kind of color. In some lights it appears quite pale, in other a deep burnt amber color. The coloration is color from the varnish + a small amount of bone black in the top coats.

Rainer Beiharz won a Certificate of Merit for his cello at the recent VSA competition. The color on the cello was very similar to the Guad.

on we go,

Joe

[Kelvin Scott]

Hi Michael,

Hans Pluhar, a very good contemporary instrument maker whose work I admire, quite often does a varnish that has this kind of straw or honey-colored look. He pulls if off really well. It is a challenge on an instrument that is not antiqued, but Hans' fiddles to my eye are very attractive. http://www.hanspluhar.com/instruments.html I sometimes worry that many of us are varnishing a bit too dark, too much pigment, etc...I worry that the linseed oil and wood may change over a few hundred years to push the color even darker.

Kelvin

[Michael K.]

Hi Joe! That become a nice cello. I like the run of the flames change from upper to lower bout.

Hi Michael,

Hans Pluhar, a very good contemporary instrument maker whose work I admire, quite often does a varnish that has this kind of straw or honey-colored look. He pulls if off really well. It is a challenge on an instrument that is not antiqued, but Hans' fiddles to my eye are very attractive. http://www.hanspluha...nstruments.html I sometimes worry that many of us are varnishing a bit too dark, too much pigment, etc...I worry that the linseed oil and wood may change over a few hundred years to push the color even darker.

Kelvin

Hi Kelvin,

you are absolute right. It is really a challenge if a Instrument is not antiqued. The visual effect of this can change a lot. I think it is not only a question of color or pigment. More of how is/was it applied, in one or more layers. The top of the Guadagnini on the photo in this light looks for me just shellac rubino over a perfect closed white wood plus 250 years.

Here is a close-up photo from the Ole-Bull del Gesu rib and one of my scrolls. (Both taken with a dream of Hasselblad cameras) You see the yellow layer on the del Gesu is thinner and closer to the wood wich gives a better dichroism effect too.

[Nicolas Temino]

Nice varnish, Nicolas. Quite beautiful.

Mike

Thank you Mike. Nothing really special: Shellac ground and Hammerl oil varnish with a "personal touch" .

[Michael_Molnar]

Thank you Mike. Nothing really special: Shellac ground and Hammerl oil varnish with a "personal touch" .

"Personal touch" - That is Stradivari's secret!!!!

[Bruce Carlson]

The color of the varnish shows a nice light amber which can varies a lot under different color of light and remember me a bid of the "Goore-Booth" Strad Cello.

This color is rarely used today by contemporary makers and shows not much for "madder-lake" fans. The right ground is important follow by....?

Hi Michael,

Here are three shots of the same spot on the back of the 'Gore-Booth' only the lighting angle changes. If you flip through them quickly it's like turning the wood under a light. Mostly it is for those who haven't seen this cello in real life.

Edit: I attached the same photo twice! It is now correct.

Bruce

[Michael K.]

Hello Bruce,

thank you for the pictures, very nice! Come this color very close? It looks a bid different compare to the book of the 1987 exhibition and the full-size posters I have it from "Cremonabooks".

[Bruce Carlson]

Hello Bruce,

thank you for the pictures, very nice! Come this color very close? It looks a bid different compare to the book of the 1987 exhibition and the full-size posters I have it from "Cremonabooks".

Michael,

The problem is always the lighting and the printing. It's never the same. Sometimes when I look at this cello it is decidedly yellow-gold. In a different light it is closer to orange. The 1987 catalogue they are photographed and printed as if they were under bright lights.

EDIT: Here is another shot under brighter light; perhaps slightly over-exposed.

Bruce

[Doug Rice]

Oded,

I want to try your madder/alcohol tincture, but I don't really like using shellac as my ground (because it is so darned hard to strip off if I don't like it.) Could it be mixed with oil varnish, perhaps in an intermediary solvent like xylene? Or perhaps spirit varnish could be used as rgound?

Thanks.

Doug

p.s. Bruce, I always enjoy seeing your photographs. I have learned a lot from them.

[James M. Jones]

bruce/ love the pics thanks/ what do you think they used?

[Oded Kishony]

Doug Rice wrote:

I want to try your madder/alcohol tincture, but I don't really like using shellac as my ground (because it is so darned hard to strip off if I don't like it.) Could it be mixed with oil varnish, perhaps in an intermediary solvent like xylene? Or perhaps spirit varnish could be used as ground?

You can use any alcohol soluble resin such as mastic, sandarac, lightly cooked Venice turpentine, rosin (if you don't build it up too much),various shellacs,and any number of synthetic art restoration resins that are alcohol soluble.

I don't use this method for coloring an oil varnish.

Oded

[Doug Rice]

Thank you Oded.

Doug

[Oded Kishony]

There are a couple of different ways to do this. Mix the madder (I often also add pernambuco sawdust) with alcohol and keep warmed for a day or two, filter out the tincture. Then concentrate the color by evaporating some of the alcohol, add dissolved resin to the tincture, or dissolve the resin directly in the tincture. Madder is very pH sensitive, any contact with a base will turn it red to purple. Adding a little tannin helps to stabilize the color. Too much tannin will react with any iron and turn it black. Oxalic acid will prevent tannin from turning iron black. Tea contains both tannin and oxalic acid.

Oded

[Michael K.]

Final coat on my cello. Photos taken in the morning sun.

[Melvin Goldsmith]

Michael. Your cello looks very nice and with the theme of the Guadagnini cello you mention above. I would love to see some more pictures of your cello and hear more about the varish if you have time. Thanks, Melvin

[Michael K.]

Thanks Melvin.

The color was the customers wish. The wood is very nice and hard to find this days for Cellos.

I will take some photos after the set-up is done wich is in the middle of January and post it. First I was thinking to send it to Jan Röhrmann, but I decided to take it here with some help in a studio, because my own daylight bulbs are not strong enough for a cello. I tell later about the color and varnish.

[James M. Jones]

Final coat on my cello. Photos taken in the morning sun.

Amazing!

[fiddlecollector]

Very clean looking, i sold a cello recently whose colour and wood looked very similar ,it had the label of a well known European dealer, and a 16" back post crack(which i repaired) but i dont think it was anything to do with him.

[Michael K.]

Just a quick set-up for photos. Find the right pigments is sometimes easier as matching the right color in the photshop.