Violin Forum/Message Board

[catbrain]

my cousin gave the what could be a pre 1900 german violin he rescued out of the neighbors trash about 30 years ago.

The top was in about 4 pieces. The inside of it was really uneven and thin and had deep trenches from a gouge. I decided way too rough to fix.

No purfling-- no cornerblocks-- no .... no end blocks......

I am making a cedar top for it. ( Just kind of for fun and as an experiment)

any suggestions on how to thicness it ? I am guessing it will have to be quite a bit thicker than a spruce top because it is rather light wood. I would guess maybe double ?????? (judging by its low density)

Would I be able to go by the mode frequency ? Thats my plan right now......

The cedar is very easy to cut and somewhat fragile

Tim

PS--- should I skip purfling since it didnt have any before ? I dont expect to get any style point on this anyway

[Michael Darnton]

You do need to make it thicker. Cedar is very light, and also tender to accidental impressions. I think that I added about 20% the time or two I used it, but I did not like the sound at all, and even retopped one of them. Later I used it on small instruments and it was much better there.
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[catbrain]

do you think a penetrating layer of shellac (maybe heavy-) on the outside would help the surface be more damage resistant and maybe help the sound ?
(since cedar is quite a bit softer than spruce--)

[Michael Darnton]

I don't think it would hurt. Shellac is not bad, acoustically, but you want ot avoid adding too much weight. It might mitigate some of the things I didn't like about the cedar sound.
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