Strads not symmetrical

[JacksonMaberry]

3 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

It's a poem about me.

[bkwood]

Nails seem very crude. Why the heck did they use nails and not glue, like we do?

[Davide Sora]

8 minutes ago, bkwood said:

Nails seem very crude. Why the heck did they use nails and not glue, like we do?

They did not use the mortised neck as we do today, the heel was simply glued resting on the rib, then nailed.

[JacksonMaberry]

9 minutes ago, Davide Sora said:

They did not use the mortised neck as we do today, the heel was simply glued resting on the rib, then nailed.

You beat me to it. Haha, thanks Davide. You're my favorite Dave on the forum, along with Beard

[Davide Sora]

1 hour ago, JacksonMaberry said:

You beat me to it. Haha, thanks Davide. You're my favorite Dave on the forum, along with Beard

Let's not let Burgess know...

[David Burgess]

2 hours ago, JacksonMaberry said:

You beat me to it. Haha, thanks Davide. You're my favorite Dave on the forum, along with Beard

Now you've done it! No more free hot dogs and free toasters from me.

[JacksonMaberry]

10 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Now you've done it! No more free hot dogs and free toasters from me.

Aw man!!!

[Don Noon]

6 hours ago, bkwood said:

Nails seem very crude. Why the heck did they use nails and not glue, like we do?

Because it was less work/faster compared to the mortise/glue method.

[JacksonMaberry]

19 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

Because it was less work/faster compared to the mortise/glue method.

Doubt that's the only or even primary reason, but sure, might have been a factor. More likely it was just tradition inherited from another craft. Some schools of lute making for example.

 

Edit: how many baroque necks have you done anyway? Not sure I agree that is less work, just different work. 

[David Beard]

Perhaps we tend to forget or gloss over how significantly the neck work changed in the violin family between 1775 and 1810.    Notice that this time also corresponds with the other big shifts.  Classical music goes from Baroque to the dramatics of Beethoven.  The American revolution, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Encyclopedists, and Destruction of the Old Traditions of Apprentices and Guilds all took place over the same stretch of time.

Fingerboards grew longer.  Instrumental technique made more high position demands.  Besides longer fingerboards, players also needed thinned out neck roots to help them reach up the the fingerboards.  Thinning the neck roots conflicted with the old systems of nailed on necks.

We tend to not focus on the fact that modern building methods presume an angled and mortised in neck.   But, the instruments we praise the most weren't built that way.

We do not know how much various side effects of these conflicting perspectives may have real consequences in instruments.

The asymmetries that are inseparable from classic making are chased away in much modern making.   Is this difference incidental or essential?   What of other side effects of the old versus the newer methods?  Are all such differences as incidental as we presume, or are some perhaps essential?

 

Sadly, I lost my notes on the source and context for this picture.  But it shows an early mortised in neck that tries to imitate the top edge features of the old making that are destroyed or not made with mortised necks.  

 

 

[JacksonMaberry]

1 hour ago, David Beard said:

Perhaps we tend to forget or gloss over how significantly the neck work changed in the violin family between 1775 and 1810.    Notice that this time also corresponds with the other big shifts.  Classical music goes from Baroque to the dramatics of Beethoven.  The American revolution, French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Encyclopedists, and Destruction of the Old Traditions of Apprentices and Guilds all took place over the same stretch of time.

Fingerboards grew longer.  Instrumental technique made more high position demands.  Besides longer fingerboards, players also needed thinned out neck roots to help them reach up the the fingerboards.  Thinning the neck roots conflicted with the old systems of nailed on necks.

We tend to not focus on the fact that modern building methods presume an angled and mortised in neck.   But, the instruments we praise the most weren't built that way.

We do not know how much various side effects of these conflicting perspectives may have real consequences in instruments.

The asymmetries that are inseparable from classic making are chased away in much modern making.   Is this difference incidental or essential?   What of other side effects of the old versus the newer methods?  Are all such differences as incidental as we presume, or are some perhaps essential?

 

Sadly, I lost my notes on the source and context for this picture.  But it shows an early mortised in neck that tries to imitate the top edge features of the old making that are destroyed or not made with mortised necks.  

 

 

Great pic, David. There's an Enrico Ceruti out there with a glued and screwed neck that has overstand. Must have been an interesting time.

[francoisdenis]

On 8/31/2022 at 5:44 PM, Davide Sora said:

They did not use the mortised neck as we do today, the heel was simply glued resting on the rib, then nailed.

Am I to infer from this post that you agree with me that the most logical method is to drill the holes in the block first then glue the heel and then nail the neck?

[Davide Sora]

2 hours ago, francoisdenis said:

Am I to infer from this post that you agree with me that the most logical method is to drill the holes in the block first then glue the heel and then nail the neck?

Basically yes, but not exactly in the order you say. I would glue the neck first, with the ribs still on the form, then once the form is removed, drill the guide holes and drive the nails.

The guide holes for the nails could be drilled even before gluing the block to the form, perhaps it would be more comfortable and it would not change much conceptually, but to be sure they stay well inside the heel I would prefer to do them after the neck is glued.

 

[JacksonMaberry]

38 minutes ago, Davide Sora said:

Basically yes, but not exactly in the order you say. I would glue the neck first, with the ribs still on the form, then once the form is removed, drill the guide holes and drive the nails.

The guide holes for the nails could be drilled even before gluing the block to the form, perhaps it would be more comfortable and it would not change much conceptually, but to be sure they stay well inside the heel I would prefer to do them after the neck is glued.

 

Yes! This is how I have settled on doing it and, for me at least, it works very well and feels quite natural.

[francoisdenis]

On 9/12/2022 at 3:52 PM, Davide Sora said:

Basically yes, but not exactly in the order you say. I would glue the neck first, with the ribs still on the form, then once the form is removed, drill the guide holes and drive the nails.

The guide holes for the nails could be drilled even before gluing the block to the form, perhaps it would be more comfortable and it would not change much conceptually, but to be sure they stay well inside the heel I would prefer to do them after the neck is glued.

 

Personally the most comfortable method (for me) is to glue the sides on the bottom first, then adjust the neck  and drill the holes in the block then, I glue the heel first which allows easy control of angles and axes and I end introducing the glue in the gap between the handle and the block ; the nails are placed last.
The story that the asymmetry of the corners would be due to the alignment of the neck is a pure invention. If we get rid of this myth more relevant processes can be considered.

[JacksonMaberry]

1 hour ago, francoisdenis said:

Personally the most comfortable method (for me) is to glue the sides on the bottom first, then adjust the neck  and drill the holes in the block then, I glue the heel first which allows easy control of angles and axes and I end introducing the glue in the gap between the handle and the block ; the nails are placed last.
The story that the asymmetry of the corners would be due to the alignment of the neck is a pure invention. If we get rid of this myth more relevant processes can be considered.

Can you say more about why you think it's a myth? It seems like a plausible enough method (as proposed by Hargrave). Your approach sounds good for keeping everything exactly as intended. I don't think there is one correct, historical way to do this and we can't know exactly how it was done in old Cremona.

[francoisdenis]

2 hours ago, JacksonMaberry said:

Can you say more about why you think it's a myth? It seems like a plausible enough method (as proposed by Hargrave). Your approach sounds good for keeping everything exactly as intended. I don't think there is one correct, historical way to do this and we can't know exactly how it was done in old Cremona.

"That seems like a pretty plausible method"
Yes, I agree, this is the strength of the proposal and it is for this reason that it caught the attention but, unfortunately, the asymmetries of the corners are not properly explained in this way. To be more precise, this proposition is not necessary to explain the shape and position of the corners. This absence of correlation has already been observed for a long time.

"Your approach seems good to keep everything exactly as planned" the idea being to set the neck in the axis I guess that any method which leads to an opposite result should be rejected. 

"I don't think there is one correct and historical way of doing this and we cannot know exactly how it was done in ancient Cremona"
How many "correct and historical" ways do you imagine possible? In fact, I don't think talked about that, just saying that the historicity of the method is supported for a wrong reason, nothing more.

 

[Davide Sora]

4 hours ago, francoisdenis said:

Personally the most comfortable method (for me) is to glue the sides on the bottom first, then adjust the neck  and drill the holes in the block then, I glue the heel first which allows easy control of angles and axes and I end introducing the glue in the gap between the handle and the block ; the nails are placed last.
The story that the asymmetry of the corners would be due to the alignment of the neck is a pure invention. If we get rid of this myth more relevant processes can be considered.

I think your system can work just as well as any other when you have the key details fine-tuned, but it seems to me that fixing the neck to the ribs before anything else is a more instinctive system (that is, closer to the way of working of the ancient Cremonese), as it allows for more last-minute adjustments.

Then, everything is pure invention when trying to reconstruct working systems of which it will always be impossible to obtain objective evidence, I don't think a common agreement on how things were done can ever be found.

[JacksonMaberry]

34 minutes ago, Davide Sora said:

I think your system can work just as well as any other when you have the key details fine-tuned, but it seems to me that fixing the neck to the ribs before anything else is a more instinctive system (that is, closer to the way of working of the ancient Cremonese), as it allows for more last-minute adjustments.

Then, everything is pure invention when trying to reconstruct working systems of which it will always be impossible to obtain objective evidence, I don't think a common agreement on how things were done can ever be found.

This was my point, last paragraph.

Agreed that attaching the neck earlier is more intuitive and flexible in the right ways. But there is margin for error, as in all things, and simply requires care.

[francoisdenis]

8 hours ago, Davide Sora said:

I think your system can work just as well as any other when you have the key details fine-tuned, but it seems to me that fixing the neck to the ribs before anything else is a more instinctive system (that is, closer to the way of working of the ancient Cremonese), as it allows for more last-minute adjustments.

Then, everything is pure invention when trying to reconstruct working systems of which it will always be impossible to obtain objective evidence, I don't think a common agreement on how things were done can ever be found.

 

8 hours ago, JacksonMaberry said:

This was my point, last paragraph.

Agreed that attaching the neck earlier is more intuitive and flexible in the right ways. But there is margin for error, as in all things, and simply requires care.

I think you misunderstood me. It is you who evoke a "more instinctive system closer to the mode of operation of the ancient Cremonese". Personally I do not defend such a thing, I simply note that the argument does not support the hypothesis. I'm sorry but the asymmetries of the corners are not correlated to the way of attaching the neck. Experiment and you'll find, depending on the method you support, that it's entirely possible to make the small adjustments needed while still positioning the corners symmetrically (I spoke of a "myth" because we have here "a bad answer to a good question about the origin of something, I mean asymmetries. I agree that the qualification is exaggerating... it's more of a kind of analogy).

Various types of fixings were used - necks attached to the ribs or being part of them existe since medieval times, the use of nails also predates the invention of the violin since this is how lute neck were fixed. In the history of the revival of the medieval instrumentarium during the Renaissance, the relatively late appearance of the violin clearly depends on these two traditions (mass carving and bending of light elements). It is reasonable to consider that the mold of the violin is linked to the technique of making the lute probably imported from some Saxon or/and Spanish luthiers into Italy.

The terminology can also enlighten us, the luth makers therefore the "luthiers", systematically distinguished the "body" and the "table", the latter being precisely the internal dimension of the "body" that is to say, the distance between the blocs. Following this tradition a neck is nailed on the "body" which is then closed by the "top". This is following this logic that luthiers imbued with this tradition of making would have reasoned. It's one good reason (for me) to pay some attention to this possibility of a technique that is part of the extension of a tradition.

Without being strictly correlated to the previous one, the axiology of the neck is not an "obvious" question either, since in both traditions we find necks which are not placed in the axis of the instrument but in the alignment of the chanterelle.
In short, there are many interesting questions to ask about this story and I can't be stuck to a single "instinctive" explanation if I consider that it is, may be true or not  but obviously ill-founded.

[Davide Sora]

2 hours ago, francoisdenis said:

....

I'm sorry but the asymmetries of the corners are not correlated to the way of attaching the neck.

....
In short, there are many interesting questions to ask about this story and I can't be stuck to a single "instinctive" explanation if I consider that it is, may be true or not  but obviously ill-founded.

I agree that the asymmetries of the corners are not correlated to the way of attaching the neck. At least only marginally, the reason must be sought elsewhere, I have personally experimented and concluded that to obtain certain extreme asymmetries (one C up and one down) the neck should be so crooked that the luthier who attacked it would have to be drunk to not notice it But this does not rules out the method itself, only its correlation with asymmetries.

I have always appreciated your way of investigating these aspects starting from the understanding of what existed before and how it could have evolved, it is a very logical way to try to formulate concrete and as realistic hypotheses as possible. So please do not stop, I will always be in the front row listening to your hypotheses, while always knowing that they are only theories, they always offer excellent points of comparison with our own hypotheses.

 

[Ernee]

It seems that there are two asymmetries at work here, or three.  One is faulty execution.  Possible, but not likely in the best makers.  Second is a by-product of the neck twisting things out of shape.  Different tensions of strings from E to G, and stresses of performing make that all the more likely.

Then there is intentional asymmetry (or incidental, perhaps, while the maker was aiming at a particular quality).  I once saw a video by Charles Ervin, I think, where he shows that pinpricks in the Stradivari forms show that the sound holes were designed to be ever so slightly off-kilter vs. each other, with the left one a bit higher.  Might there be some of that going on with the rest of the body?

 

[David Beard]

2 hours ago, Ernee said:

It seems that there are two asymmetries at work here, or three.  One is faulty execution.  Possible, but not likely in the best makers.  Second is a by-product of the neck twisting things out of shape.  Different tensions of strings from E to G, and stresses of performing make that all the more likely.

Then there is intentional asymmetry (or incidental, perhaps, while the maker was aiming at a particular quality).  I once saw a video by Charles Ervin, I think, where he shows that pinpricks in the Stradivari forms show that the sound holes were designed to be ever so slightly off-kilter vs. each other, with the left one a bit higher.  Might there be some of that going on with the rest of the body?

 

They related things by following off rhe actual build as it progressed.

The choice of vesici ratios for  the upper and lower bouts and the sizing of the main circle to shape the center bouts in designing a final plate outline follows the disposition of the actual sides.

The soundhole actual eye placements also strongly to the actual corners and outline which are settled before thw soundholes are finally worked.

Such asymmetries and vagaries are present in the works of even the best old Cremona masters.

[francoisdenis]

19 hours ago, Davide Sora said:

I agree that the asymmetries of the corners are not correlated to the way of attaching the neck. At least only marginally, the reason must be sought elsewhere, I have personally experimented and concluded that to obtain certain extreme asymmetries (one C up and one down) the neck should be so crooked that the luthier who attacked it would have to be drunk to not notice it But this does not rules out the method itself, only its correlation with asymmetries.

I have always appreciated your way of investigating these aspects starting from the understanding of what existed before and how it could have evolved, it is a very logical way to try to formulate concrete and as realistic hypotheses as possible. So please do not stop, I will always be in the front row listening to your hypotheses, while always knowing that they are only theories, they always offer excellent points of comparison with our own hypotheses.

 

thank you

 

 

[francoisdenis]

14 hours ago, David Beard said:

The choice of vesici ratios for  the upper and lower bouts

Hi David, what do you mean exactly here? The "vesica pisci " was a pythagorean symbol of trinity and symmetry connected to the division of a width into 3 equal parts  "1-1-1" , It has been "recycled"  afterward (for its trinity property) by the catholics (and lately by  the new-age as a feminist symbole of the fertility ).  An upper part of a violin made following this symmetry will look very weird !