Violin labeled George W. Dykes

[Andreas Preuss]

Anyone who has seen other violins by George W. Dykes? 

Pretty cool French style violin. 

 

[Delabo]

Is there a reason for inserting an ebony strip in the bottom rib like this maker has done ?

Expansion - contraction - aesthetics ?

[sospiri]

5 minutes ago, Delabo said:

Is there a reason for inserting an ebony strip in the bottom rib like this maker has done ?

Expansion - contraction - aesthetics ?

Ribs shorten along the grain not across the grain like boards do. I assume this must be because of the shape being a long thin strip?

[Strad O Various Jr.]

Ribs don't really shorten, they get narrower, this is why the ribs bulge out when the plates shrink in width.

[Delabo]

3 minutes ago, sospiri said:

Ribs shorten along the grain not across the grain like boards do. I assume this must be because of the shape being a long thin strip?

Even if the ribs never expand or contract the top definitely does, maybe the back not so much, and causes all sorts of problems that require the ribs to be cut and shortened.

I use to think that this ebony strip was part of the repair when shortening ribs, but of late I have seen that it was often inserted from new.

[sospiri]

11 minutes ago, Delabo said:

Even if the ribs never expand or contract the top definitely does, maybe the back not so much, and causes all sorts of problems that require the ribs to be cut and shortened.

I use to think that this ebony strip was part of the repair when shortening ribs, but of late I have seen that it was often inserted from new.

Does the top always visibly narrow? Or does it sometimes sink? I ask this because you often see old violins where there are no saddle cracks. Maybe the saddles had a slight groove along the side to prevent this?

[Strad O Various Jr.]

Shrinkage has mostly to do with using not totally dried wood, if the wood is really dry it will hardly shrink at all.

[Blank face]

1 hour ago, Andreas Preuss said:

Pretty cool French style violin. 

Of course a pretty nice one, thanks for showing it. Mind the assymetrical button . Why are you writing "labelled" only? Do you assume it could be not made by him? Looks a bit too personal for a bought in violin IMO.

[Delabo]

6 minutes ago, sospiri said:

Does the top always visibly narrow? Or does it sometimes sink? I ask this because you often see old violins where there are no saddle cracks. Maybe the saddles had a slight groove along the side to prevent this?

I guess that well seasoned spruce is much less likely to shrink than recent green wood.

I have a 3/4 length  markie sitting next to me with the top off  which has a very shrunken top and will need a rib reduction to make it fit back on again again so it definitely happens.

[Delabo]

2 minutes ago, Blank face said:

Of course a pretty nice one, thanks for showing it. Mind the assymetrical button . Why are you writing "labelled" only? Do you assume it could be not made by him? Looks a bit too personal for a bought in violin IMO.

And the asymmetrical saddle.

[Dave Slight]

42 minutes ago, sospiri said:

Ribs shorten along the grain not across the grain like boards do. I assume this must be because of the shape being a long thin strip?

Ribs do not shrink along the grain.

[Strad O Various Jr.]

If you look at a quality company like EH Roth, they used very dry wood and you rarely come across saddle cracks, and I've never seen the ribs bulging out at all.

[Delabo]

6 minutes ago, Strad O Various Jr. said:

If you look at a quality company like EH Roth, they used very dry wood and you rarely come across saddle cracks, and I've never seen the ribs bulging out at all.

What do you mean by ribs bulging out ?

 

[Strad O Various Jr.]

When the top and back shrink significantly, the ribs don't, so they end up being longer than the newly shrunk plates and the ribs have nowhere to go but out, bulging out from the edge of the plates in the worst case scenario, then you end up having to shorten the ribs to properly fit the new narrower plates.

[Blank face]

18 minutes ago, Strad O Various Jr. said:

If you look at a quality company like EH Roth, they used very dry wood and you rarely come across saddle cracks, and I've never seen the ribs bulging out at all.

I don't think that saddle cracks have much to do with wood quality, but more how the instrument was stored. Even the best seasoned wood is absorbing air moisture and drying out again. Also the ribs at these Roths were made rather thickly (as we learned recently) therefore less easily bulging than others.

[GeorgeH]

Just now, Blank face said:

I don't think that saddle cracks have much to do with wood quality, but more how the instrument was stored.

I would add that saddle cracks have much to do with how the saddle was initially fitted. Violins with tightly-fitted saddles are more prone to saddle cracks as the top expands and contracts around the hard ebony.

Saddle cracks forming underneath the tail piece also seem more common in Markneukirchen violins that have a locator pin in the top above the saddle.

[Delabo]

17 minutes ago, Strad O Various Jr. said:

When the top and back shrink significantly, the ribs don't, so they end up being longer than the newly shrunk plates and the ribs have nowhere to go but out, bulging out from the edge of the plates in the worst case scenario, then you end up having to shorten the ribs to properly fit the new narrower plates.

Ah, right, that's like the one in front of me here.

I do not see any movement in the ribs, its the top that has shrunk, so is the term  "ribs bulging" the correct  way to describe this problem ?

On my violin the ribs have not moved at all on the figured Maple back plate because the Maple has not noticeably contracted over a hundred years.

 

 

[Strad O Various Jr.]

44 minutes ago, Blank face said:

I don't think that saddle cracks have much to do with wood quality, but more how the instrument was stored. Even the best seasoned wood is absorbing air moisture and drying out again. Also the ribs at these Roths were made rather thickly (as we learned recently) therefore less easily bulging than others.

if the plates shrink considerably, the ribs are going to be bulging irrespective of how thick they are, remember the ribs aren't shrinking along the grain but the plates are.

[Blank face]

38 minutes ago, Strad O Various Jr. said:

if the plates shrink considerably, the ribs are going to be bulging irrespective of how thick they are,

Or the arching is deforming. A violin box is a connected system and will give in at the weakest point. I'm not trying to convince you of something you don't want to believe, but to argue that not bulging ribs or resistance to saddle cracks have anything to do with "dry wood" sounds like sale propaganda to me (as long as we aren't talking about the most cheap and nastiest stuff here). There are too many variables like wood density, grain direction and structural issues to attribute absence or presence of bulging ribs to only one reason like "good firms used dry wood". OTOH I don't know how it can be proven that EH Roth ribs are bulging in general less than others, you would need many confirmed records about repairs, storage and more over a long period for many instruments.

[Strad O Various Jr.]

whatever, anyone knows that green wood shrinks more than thoroughly seasoned wood

[Andreas Preuss]

8 hours ago, GeorgeH said:

I would add that saddle cracks have much to do with how the saddle was initially fitted. Violins with tightly-fitted saddles are more prone to saddle cracks as the top expands and contracts around the hard ebony.

Saddle cracks forming underneath the tail piece also seem more common in Markneukirchen violins that have a locator pin in the top above the saddle.

Long time I thought so too until I saw saddle cracks on a fiddle where the saddle had on both sides a gap.

 

[Andreas Preuss]

9 hours ago, Blank face said:

Of course a pretty nice one, thanks for showing it. Mind the assymetrical button . Why are you writing "labelled" only? Do you assume it could be not made by him? Looks a bit too personal for a bought in violin IMO.

I wrote 'Labeled' because I haven't seen another one so far, thus this is the most correct description. It is well possible that Dykes bought or ordered it somewhere in France.  

[Andreas Preuss]

10 hours ago, Delabo said:

Is there a reason for inserting an ebony strip in the bottom rib like this maker has done ?

Expansion - contraction - aesthetics ?

ebony strip at the lower block can be an indicator for an outside mould. 

 

[PhilipKT]

My cello has this feature. Never thought to ask why, but I think it’s attractive. That’s cocobola wood, btw.

 

[Andreas Preuss]

13 hours ago, Dave Slight said:

Ribs do not shrink along the grain.

Not as much as across the grain. If you make a perfect joint at the rib ends at the lower block and let it unvarnished in the open air it will open due to minimal shrinkage.