Violin Forum/Message Board

[Dave Chandler]

I recently took possession of an old maple plank, 12' x 12" x 1.5" and this particular piece came from that plank. Its been sitting in a rick for about a year out in the weather. I took this piece as an example to see how its going to look when its ready for violin making sometime in the future (and see if its worth pursuing more from the stockpile where I got this). Its fairly dark wood already from the aging process, as the rib piece in the first photo attests, having been cut from the interior of the plank.

Step 1 scraping the wood, you can see a rib piece that I had already done in the background. I'm trying to duplicate that piece.



Step 2 rubbing in about a teaspoon of my final varnish thinned in about an ounce of alcohol.



Step 3, a light scraping



Step 4, rubbing in my "sealer" which is clear lacquer thinned 3 to one with lacquer thinner.



Step 5, french polishing in my colored spirit varnish, just one session was all that was needed. The color is 5 drops orange and 40 drops brown, Colortone liquid stain, in a 2# amber shellac.



Please feel free to critique, being a novice/amateur I appreciate any input from those with more experience, and hope its helpful to someone preparing to do their first violin.
_________________
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

[byacey]

Hi Dave, it appears as a very nice color and the figure show up nicely. The only concern I would have is using nitrocellulose laquer for a seal, as other finishes don't seem to adhere to it well long term. I would consider using mastic or even plain shellac rather than the laquer.
_________________
Bill

[Dave Chandler]

I was perusing some SCAVM (S. Calif. Assoc of Violin Makers) bulletins from the 1980s and I came across information about grounds by Dr. Norman Pickering. By trade an accoustical engineer especially concentrating on the accoustics of stringed instrument. His favorite ground was thinned lacquer because it penetrated deep into the wood and helped stiffen the wood laterally and less so longitudinally, thereby tending to equalize (somewhat) the ratio of the stiffness in the two directions.

If he's still alive, he'd be about 95 years old now. In the past he's been very active at the annual meetings of the VSA, and always has some very good contributions.

http://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/norman-pickering
_________________
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

[Chad48309]

Does there exist any well-researched studies into comparisons of the acoustic properties of varying finishes? If so, can anyone point me in the direction of this material?

I've used a nitrocellulose lacquer on a classical guitar and an archtop. I made another classical that used an amateurish shellac, but I could not make enough of a distinction in the difference in tone. The former used a cedar top while the latter had a spruce top. My initial reaction was that the shellac yielded a brighter tone with more projection, but I cannot possibly distinguish it enough due to the difference in top woods.

Any thoughts?
_________________
-C.S.

[Michael Darnton]

I think someone in the old Catgut Acoustical Society wrote a report at least ten years ago comparing finishes, but they only used small pieces of wood and some instrumentation, not real instruments and ears. As I remember, lacquer came out quite well, by their standards.

Lacquer takes several years to fully dry, so that might be questionable in the long run. I do know a maker who was very famous for his violins, which were lacquer finished, and also became well known for his instruments turning "hard" sounding in a couple of years.

In my experience, small amounts of any finish don't make much difference; it's when you start to pile them up thick that they start to matter, and the direction they go in is never good, so I'd be inclined to say it doesn't matter too much what you use, as long as you keep it as thin as possible.
_________________
new blog at my site! http://darntonviolins.com/blog
my work sites: http://darntonviolins.com and http://darntonhersh.com

[L P Reedy]

I don't know about the CAS, but Charles Gadd, who was also a friend of Norman Pickering, did a number of tests on small flat samples. I believe some of the results were published in the VSA papers, but I have not seen them. He told me about 20 years ago that acrylic lacquer (used a lot in automotive applications) came out best in his tests as a ground. I have some of his data but that doesn't seem to be among them. His criterion seemed to be simply amount (lack) of attenuation. I haven't tried it for a variety of reasons. I would ask him more if he were still with us.

Lyle

[Dave Chandler]

Just to put this back into the context of my "example of a finish process" -- the lacquer I used was thinned 3 to 1 (or more) with lacquer thinner, just as a sealer.
_________________
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