Violin Forum/Message Board

[kjb]

is there any advise you can give on a 5 sting for the bass bar, or is it something that is more intuitive and a need for more experience on my part .

I have it 6 mm wide at this point .

[Chet Bishop]

Are you talking about the edge which will be glued to the plate? If so, I would not go any thinner.

And I make mine pretty high...say, 16-17mm at center-- not counting the plate, which some people measure as if it is part of the bar. When I measure, I am measuring from the inside of the plate to the top of the bar. My thought was that the bass string is better supposrted with the relatively high bar.

Some acoustics expert will most likely shoot me down, but, right or wrong, that's what I have done, and, so far they have worked well.
_________________
Chet Bishop
https://bluefiddles.com
https://fivestringfiddles.com

[actonern]

I had read elsewhere that with bars, narrower and taller = darker sound (vs. fatter and less tall).

Not speaking from experience...

E

[kjb]

thanks chet , I am shooting in the dark here so any help will be appreciated. I think I started out with 20 mm so I have room to work up.

yes the edge that is glued to the plate.

should I also leave it thicker all the way up , say not make the angle as steep . and leave more mass.

also do you use the standard shaping , with the higher center point.

thanks again for the help. kevin

[Chet Bishop]

Pretty standard shaping, I would say, and I definitely taper to a thinner top from both sides.

I start closer to 7mm at the bottom, and am around 4mm at the top, maybe, and rounded off.

Also (and I am not sure that it matters, I have always made my bass-bars perpendicular to the plane of the ribs, not perpendicular to the tangent of the curve of the plate. There are good teachers on both sides of that fence...I have no idea which is really better. I'm pretty sure I remember that Michael Darnton makes his the other way.

This is a cello bass bar I just completed. It is quite high (24mm at center, I think). The plate is 758mm long, if that helps.




Can't say how it sounds-- haven't finished the cello. I have posted a step-by-step journal on my website, though.

Chet
_________________
Chet Bishop
https://bluefiddles.com
https://fivestringfiddles.com

[kjb]

thanks, I went the the cj book and the angle determined by the width of the bouts, they also recommended the 5 to 5.5 mm thickness, depending on plate stiffness.
my plate is pretty stiff so going by them I am thicker than recommended.
I am not sure how the relationship is between thickness/ mass and bass response, as I am putting the viola c on this one. need to learn a lot more about that.
It seems that the whole 5 string thing is a lot of trial and error, and a variety of ways to do it. maybe like violas are?