Violin Forum/Message Board

I have heard that if you use Volatile Balsam oil varnish it will dry very quickly and give a very hard surface. I have not used it.

I've put several coats of Joe Robson's volatile balsam varnish o ...

Interesting discussion about arching going on here. I was looking at the Strad poster for the GDG Plowden recently and the flat spot on the top of this instrument is remarkably flatter and longer than ...

I use a good quality round shoe polishing brush with rottenstone and boiled linseed oil. Works good on the edges and flexes to the curved surfaces better than fingers with removing to much material im ...

Bob,
What kind of tailpiece is it? Wood or composite? What kind of tail cord does it have, gut or synthetic? One fine tuner or more? Does the fine tuner come from underneath the tailpiece and extend ...

[quote="L P Reedy"]
In addition, a reamer with evenly spaced cutting edges all the way around will chatter and not cut a smooth hole. Countersinks do the same thing. My best countersink has ...

Hi Terry,
Go with the straight blade type. The spiral reamers tend make the hole not round. Good luck!
Mike Spencer

Don very interesting to do and show so many scrolls and they all look great and different too! They do all look different in the pic and some more distinctive than others. I always wonder how distinct ...

Fjodor great job on the varnish and the violin is looking awesome. I'm using Joe's system too same as you, one question is did you do any smoothing between the ground coats or color coats if so what? ...

Fjodor things are looking great on that fiddle! What pattern are you using? Ffs look real nice and I like the wing scooping. Also do you care to reveal any info on the graduations? European tone woods ...

Paco, Wow very impressive and wonderful work! As a craftsman how can one not aspire to do this kind of work at some point in ones career and it's great to see it posted, very very nice! Thanks for sha ...

I need to blacken a pearwood fingerboard and am curious to know how others do this? For ebony boards I use India ink to blacken then mineral oil over that. It seems like with the density difference be ...

Don, That is really looking great! I like the f's, I think it's hard to capture the Del Gesu look but you got it and the corners are sweet looking.

Ken, That one you are working on is also looking ...

Don, Wow! very nice color and great looking work and wood! Dare I ask what is your varnish and system?

CT, I hope to start varnishing in about a month. I have an extensive restoration to do first. ...

I've been doing the final scraping and edge work on this fiddle. Here's a few pictures of the final edge work at the corners I did over the weekend.
1st picture shows the very small and slight angle ...

Nice work Don! I still think one of the most difficult features to execute on a scroll is where the fluting terminates at the eye.
Best,
Mike Spencer