Violin Forum/Message Board

[wm_crash]

I'm at my home away from home these days visiting my father in law in Romania. He worked in forestry his whole life. Turns out that at some point, he was assisting the wood selection for violin making from the area where he was working.

He worked with Vasile Gliga and had some stories about the guy. Gliga (who lives in eastern Romania) used to personally travel to the northwest to hand pick the spruce. He used to select the wood during summer. He'd come over, remove a patch of bark, and use a hammer to check for tone. The trees he liked would be sealed in a metal wrapping. The following winter, the tree would be taken down.

Taking down the tree involved first building a bedding of branches on top of snow. The tree would be felled with axes only. Once down, it would be cut down into sections one meter long. Sawing was done by handsaw only. From there, the sections were lifted on stretchers and walked to the road. A truck would drive all the way back east for further refinement of the stock. Billets were hand split, and the ones that don't naturally split straight would be rejected. Gliga refused to have lumber shipped by train just to avoid further rough handling of the wood.

Unrelated to violins, I got a first hand look at the local larch tree. He has two stumps in his yard. We tried to drive nails into a stump and couldn't make it. Larch lumber is supposedly worked green, and there is very little movement while drying. Once dry, larch feels like concrete. This is the only conifer that completely loses foliage during fall.

Well, there goes my ramblings.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

[kjb]

interesting , thanks