Violin Forum/Message Board

[Geemac]

This note is for those here who like to try ideas instead of sticking hard and fast to traditional violin making. Over past few years I have done some reasonable snooping and thinking about the old masters. In that research I have thought through to some conclusions that are subject to change as required by the discovery of more information. I invite the more talented makers among us to try what I have discovered at least once and report back to the board. Here is what I have found.

* Makers were poor.
* They made their own materials

Methods to try

* Boiled wood is easier to carve. Before gluing and carving, boil the wood, especially the spruce, in water with salt, epsom salts(Magnesium sulfate) and borax. After drying you will notice that your top spruce boards will 'ring' when tapped. How much to add? Boil up some scrap spruce and determine what you like.

* Use orange shellac to achieve the color you want.

* Use pummace and then rotten stone to smooth the shellac between coats.

* Make your own varnish. Luscombe Violins Inc. has a good selection of materials. Be sure to add burnt alum to the mix. It adds potasium to the finish. Here is a link to explain what it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_alum

* This method adds volcanic earth particles, salt(sodium), borax, potasium and magnesium to the wood. I believe that at this point we have added the 'found' ingredients that are present in my friend Tony's violins.

* The method presented here will help to make the wood crisp and very dry. Anyone who has handled a speaker must have noticed that it is quite crisp and dry too, so you should get a better responsivenes and sweeter sound from your violins. I did.

I look foreward to reading about your results in this thread.

If you are a traditionalist, please take the time to try this method at least once before you pass judgement upon it. After all, this may be the traditional way to make a violin.

Cemonaly yours
Geemac
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GeeMac

[MANFIO]

Hi! Our craft is a traditional one. Before experimenting with wood treatment, in general, we makers, have to produce an instrument with a good outline, good archings, graduation, scroll, varnish, set up, good sound and playability, etc.

In general, while we devolp these things we develop our own ideas about making and sound. In my case, I test small things, one small thing on each instrument. If it works, I keep it, if it does not work, I abandon it.

The wood treatment is a highly controversial issue. Count Cozio di Salabue, writing in 1790 "circa" about violin making (see his "Carttegio"), advises to get wood in Venice in the Arsenal, but to get it prior that it's put on the sea water. He also criticizes the sound produced by German maker because they use "treated spruce" in their violins.

What differences in sound have you noticed in your instruments after using this method?
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[Geemac]

The difference I have noticed is a more pure overall sound to the instrument. Keep in mind that I am an amateur and I am retired, so I have a lot of time and no customers ) For me the investigation of the methods and materials of the old masters is enjoyable. I have posted what I have found, deduced and tried so the others on the violin forum may give it a try when they have some spare time. Perhaps you'll have some free time between customers to try it too.

I thank you for mentioning Count Cozio di Salabue. I shall look into his work. It was established in his time that salt improves the sound of any violin. As we know, salt removes moisture from anything therefore it would remove moisture from the spruce top making the top more crisp. A crisp top should act as a better resonator than a wet top. It would be easy, not time consuming and inexpensive to pour a generous amount of salt and or epsom salts onto a newly carved top and let is dry for a day or two and then clean the top and assemble the instrument.

Above all. Keep having fun.
_________________
GeeMac

[MANFIO]

Hi! Cozio reccomended to by the wood prior to its submersion in the sea water, that is, that is, he advised against the use of salty wood.
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[byacey]

Hi Luis, I question if Cozio really knew that much about the actual practices of the violin makers of that time. Perhaps he was fed misleading information by many of the makers wanting to preserve their proprietary methods. This happens even today in various industries.

By the time Cozio was doing his research, methods and materials were already changing and this is probably why he didn't get any kind of accurate documentation on the varnish of that era, as an example. Even today few makers will offer a straight answer regarding their ground and varnish; you're the exception to the rule and I commend you for your openess and honesty.

If you believe what Nagyvary and his disciples advocate, the Cremonese used nothing but treated wood!

Bill

[MANFIO]

Thanks for your kind and generous words!

You are right, Count Cozio di Salabue had no direct contact with makers of the Golden Period. They were all dead in Cozio's time.

But he was a very cultured man (the equivalent today, given our education level, would be like having degrees on Oxford, Yale, Harvard and Sorbone) and had a huge collection of stringed instruments, (dozens of them, Strads, Guarneris, Amatis, etc). He also kept contact with virtually every important person connected to our craft that lived in his time, including Giovanni Marchi and Antonio Stradivari's heirs. He owned Stradivari's tools, molds, drawings etc. His writings about violin making are concise and objective, and you may find them usefull till today. He was very close to the Mantegazza brothers.

More important: he had a long relationship with Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini. Ok, Guadagnini is not a "Golden Period" maker, but he is the closest maker to them. As a matter of fact, the estimated value for soloist violins is about the following (this is not a fixed table price, of course):

1. Guarneri-Del Gesu the most valuable to $5 million
2. Stradivari-Antonio the most valuable to $5 million
3. Bergonzi-Carlo the most valuable to $1.2 million
4, Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini-the most valuable to
valuable to $900k.

That is, Guadagnini's violins are among the more expensive concert violins today and I think every living maker would love chatting with Giobatta Guadagnini for some many many hours, as Cozio did. Yes, we can't be sure that he was saying everything he knew. But he exposed his ideas freely on his letters to Marchi and many other persons. He was, after all, "un Conte, un Nobile".
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[Mat Roop]

Geemac... I would be concerned about the residue of salt in the wood... you are right that salt removes moisture from anything and if there is a residue of salt in the wood it will remove moisture from the air... and promptly create a damp top... especially in humid conditions like today in Southern Ontario where we hit 34 Deg C and I am guessing 70-80% humidity.
Cheers... Mat

[Geemac]

I have had no acquired moisture trouble with the violins I have made this way. If you have any doubts, you may wish to use a poorer quality scrap wood and make a test violin to see if you like this method. Otherwise, just carry on having fun.
_________________
GeeMac

[violinarius]

[violinarius]

[violinarius]

[Michael Darnton]

[CT Dolan]

I used to be lured by the notion of a secret of sorts (or a collection of secrets), but the more I have matured in my knowledge the more I have come to realize that these guys were just plain good. In addition to this they had very solid training, the likes of which is almost non-existent today, and lived in an ideal moment in history. You basically had a perfect storm, with the more gifted and skilled makers of the time able to use the situation to full advantage. Unfortunately, the prevailing cultural trends did allow much information to be left behind for later generations of makers, but we do still have the best part, the instruments.

By the way, the same situation is happening today (entire fields or professions nearing their historical peak). It is simply happening in other areas of interest. However, that said we do have some very good makers living among us, some of whom I've no doubt history will treat very kindly, as it should.

[CT Dolan]

"One thing that's always been interesting to me, though, is how the bad makers of the Amati camp could make as good of violins as they could. You seem to think that if they all had the "secret" they'd all be as good as Stradivari, automatically. I think they all shared something we call "secret" that put them ahead of everyone else, but they didn't all have the other skills required to make the best possible violin."

Well, you've certainly got a good point there. We don't know it all, and you can only reverse engineer to a certain extent, after which speculation takes precedence. At the heart of it all, though, is the maker and his or her skill, their ability to navigate a myriad of decisions, following the correct path as often as possible along the way. When it comes to this, the classical makers certainly seem to have had a better map, and were trained to read it well, but I still believe that some makers today have acquired the ability to pick their way along quite well also (not even taking into account the element of time, the process of natural selection and the supposed improvement in quality time seems to bring).

[byacey]