Violin Forum/Message Board

M.Lange · Member Joined: 30 Apr 2008 Posts: 81 Location: Germany

I'm in the preparation for building my second violin.
After reading Francois Denis' very nice book "traité de lutherie", I want to draw and use one of the Stradivari molds. If possible one that works with the archings of the 1709 "ex-Viotti, ex Marie Hall", that I used on my first one.
The question is which one that would be? Maybe P or PG?
So far I have drawn the PG mold and realized that it is a bit longer than the scan of the original. Has anyone made that observation, too?
Is anyone using Denis' method to draw his molds?

I thought about using the G, but remember reading somewhere that it is difficult to get violins, that are built on that form, to sound. Is that true?

Matthias

Andres Sender · Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:23 pm Post subject:

I'm not going to be much help, but FWIW:

I played around with these constructions about two years ago and also ran into some discrepancies. Unfortunately I didn't do enough work with them to be able to characterize what was going on. I then worked for a while on recreating a particular violin's shape using these methods but in the end I ran out of time and simply worked backwards from the outline in my own rather involved version of the usual way. The resulting outline was very satisfactory.

For myself, I think learning to use Denis' methods in a way that integrates with the molds and the existing instruments will require that I put in more time than I have been willing to so far, but I hope to have another go at it later this year.

Depending on how much time you have for this, you might wish to consider figuring out where your priorities lie, letting that be your guide and perhaps letting go of one or two points of integration for now.

M.Lange · Member Joined: 30 Apr 2008 Posts: 81 Location: Germany

Thank you for your reply, Andres.

I had a look at the book again, today.
I compared the template that I made for the Viotti with the scans of the Stradivari molds and found that it is pretty close to the PG mold. It is slightly narrower in the upper bouts and the corners are a little bit different.
That may be the case, because I made the template from a photo.
I will play around with the Denis construction and see if I can get it to fit.

Matthias