Violin Forum/Message Board

[sdantonio]

Hi,

I'm about to take a stab at making a da Salo model viola, I've had the Hargrave drawings for a while and now I actually have some time to put into the project. In an ideal world I would like to get something that approximates the da Salo sound for this instrument, though I have been in the business long enough to now that with the variations in wood getting an exact tone match is very difficult.

Strad and the Cremonese makers in their crosswise arching’s approximated curtate cycloid curves, with Strad himself probably being the closest to the actual cycloid.

The Brescians seemed to have different ideas of crosswise curves.

So the first question for this project is, do I follow the Hargrave crosswise arching’s, including what appears to be distortions in the curves due to centuries on downward pressure from the strings, or do I use idealized curtate cycloids generated mathematically.

For the lengthwise archings I will be following the Hargrave drawings and I have already been warned that there is considerable left-right asymmetry in the body and that I should keep this asymmetry (I once tried to draw up a symmetrical version and found it was virtually impossible to make it symmetrical and still achieve the same lower/c/upper bout measurements of the original instrument)

Thanks
Steven.

[DonLeister]

Hi,

That sounds like a great project!
I have never studied a real Da Salo in person so I can't comment on the arching schemes.
I think there is a Strad poster of Da Salo viola do you have that to refer to?

[sdantonio]

Hi Don,

Yes, I have the poster that Roger Hargrave made up a few years ago. That is my reference. Basically I'm wondering how much symmetry I should try to put back into the instrument. The argument can be made that it may have been symmetrical when it was first made and the tension of the strings distorted it over the years.

But the counter argument is: the one and only reference Strad that I am aware of that is still in original condition and has never been reworked at all (the Messiah) is not symmetrical either. So how important is the symmetry of the instrument?

Of course with the Messiah were talking the instrument as a whole, and here with the da Salo I'm referring only to the crosswise arching. Everything else will preserve the asymmetry of the drawing.

[Dave Chandler]

Never heard a good argument for assymetrical curves, although I think there may be merit to assymetrical graduations.
_________________
Dave in the Blue Ridge
Southern Violin Association

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm" Winston Churchill

"I took the road less travelled, and now I don't know where I am." Marco Polo

[rs]

If this helps, I'll pass on what I did. I used to copy the whole concept, asymmetry and all, and was never satisfied with the results. I ended up having to do a lot of compensating to get the instrument to behave. I think the cycloid approach is light years ahead of whatever is second in line.

I used to make serpentine templates that included the scoop, etc., to try and replicate what I was seeing in others' work. I've trash-canned that approach and simply have made cycloid templates of various sizes. I then hold them against the photograph, or outline in the Strad Poster method, and pick the cycloid that matches it the best.

Other makers have told me that if I want my instrument to look like the one I am following, if I wait two or three centuries, it will distort to that shape and I will end up getting my wish. I am not sure how they know, they are the same age I am, but it sounds logical.
_________________
Randall Shenefelt