Violin Forum/Message Board

[jessupe goldastini]

hi i'm new to the forum and new to violin making....so please bare with me if i ever ask novice qeustions....i'm teaching myself to do this

regarding bending material....has anyone ever used salt water solutions to soak the wood prior to ironing....to increase plyability?

if so or if not, any opinions on this regarding finish/glue adhesion issues or cell structure damage?

has anyone heard of this professor nagravy at texas am.....he soaks wood in alum{a salt} and borax and swears this makes them sound like strads...any thoughts?

regarding tap tuning and vordichk acoustical science...are there any here that have or are working with materails other than traditional spruce/maple wood combos

i'm very interested in constructing violins that are made from materials other than traditional "tone woods"...can any one here definitively{scientifically} tell me why this would not be a good idea...other than it going against tradition?...i have seen willow violins and pear wood...but other than that, not many other wood combo's....it seems to me that there were several species of material that were not availible to the masters of europe that are availible today...and that by most trying to reproduce what they started that there has not been alot of experimentation with various species....meaning if i carve a back out of a wood that has similar acoustical "tap" properties as a dimensional simmilar peice of maple....has simmilar grain structure, janka stregnth readings and over all moisture stability{maple is very dimensionaly unstable in thicker mass} and the same for the top....would i not be able to come up with a pleasing sounding instrument{assuming construction and graduation are correct}....and perhaps be able to create uniuqe tone?...

well just some toughts for now ...thank you for your time, jesse, marin ca.

[Jack H.]

I do not soak in salt water.
When it is time for bending I use just a littel bit of water, I do not want to swell the wood, just get a bit of steam going.
Salt might get into the wood and not allow for a good glue bond.
Try to keep things CLEAN!

No comment on the professor

as for woods other thant he classical "tone woods" if you feel the need for experimenting... go for it.


Jack H.

[shershey]

My suggestion on using other woods to construct a violin would be. learn how to make a traditional violin first. There are known results, using these methods and traditional woods. Then, when you experiment with other woods, you will have something to compare to. Carving on certain species of woods will result in frustration too. Often times these woods are hard to carve, varnish and finish. Why not go with what we know works,first? Hone your carving and woodworking skills, gain confidence, then start your quest using other woods.

Good Luck.

Scott W. Hershey

[Andres Sender]

If your goal is to make the best possible violins, starting out working with alternative materials is a bad idea because good violin designs were created through empirical variation and evolution to work with maple and spruce.

In order to make really good instruments from alternative materials you have to know what a good violin needs to do and know how to build one that does it. The only way to learn that is to follow good designs using the materials they were created for.

To do anything else is to set yourself up in competition against 200 years of multi-family multi-generational evolution by people working at least full time. There's no contest.

Published science to date on violins isn't going to make up the difference.

There is this tendency for beginners to let their imaginations wander and end up with grand ideas about reinventing the wheel.

It is very common and leads to much wasting of time. I know this from personal experience.

There is truly a vast amount to be learned about traditional violin-making. One cannot hope to get anywhere significant by reinventing the violin at the beginning. All you will succeed in doing is floating in darkness making pale distant representations of violins which don’t do all that they should. It’s exactly like trying to grow a very difficult plant by using different soil and growing conditions, except that with plants it becomes pretty clear when they’re dead.

The best, and I admit the most difficult thing to do at this stage is try to restrict your imagination to the generation of questions, collect the best information you can on traditional building and do your best to follow it. Be very wary of things you read about violins, in time you will realize that about 80% of what you read is nonsense, and you will learn who to pay attention to.

It can be a bit overwhelming to realize how much lies ahead, but the good news is you are not likely to run out of reading for a long time to come.

[jethro]

Jess: I used 2-ply laminated cherry for my body on #1. Heat/steam bent
to general shape and then male-female form blocks for compression. It made for a STRONG but a little heavy body. neck and scroll blank was made from laminating 2 pieces if 1 inch cherry with the seam exactly down the center. Made a fingerboard from Brazilian cherry. Epoxy impregnated rosewood for nut and saddle. Used commercial 2 piece
back blank- about medium flame. Front wood-- (all the rest of you
cover up your screens !!!!!!!) I used a 16 foot 1 by 12 (spruce) from
lowes hardware. I had to look for 4 hours to find a quarter cut board
with close, even, straight grain. in the whole 16 feet there was only
wood good enough for 1 top ! But it worked just fine. It is louder than
any instrument I have ever played so far.

I too like wood variation, but # 2 will be strictly Kosher with maybe
the exception of the fingerboard (?) I want to see where I am
compared to every body else's instruments as a kind of measure of
how much / little I have learned.

I have found so far that fitting a bridge, post , and then optomising
those for maximum sound quality might take more skill/knowledge
the building the whole instrument !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Otherwise it's like having a Ferrari which is using a pinto carburator
and headers. You don't really know if you are wringing all the performance out of the machine that it can deliver untill the post and bridge are near ideal. ( I have a box full of bridges which were cut
one skimm too much! --- but they are cheap fortunately)

I would say maybe stick with maple/ spruce for the plates and bar.
(definately quarter cut-) the other parts are probably less acousticly
critical and therefore safer to explore ! But as someone pointed out
violinists are a conservative bunch. Fiddlers seem to be more open
minded as to woods and finnishes and ornimentation.

In physics there is a term called "emissitivity" which refers to what
degree a substance will radiate energy from the surface out to the outside world. These are looked up in reference books for each material.

I suspect there is a similar comparative measure for how efficiently
sound is reflected/transmitted off the surface of different woods. I
suspect things like hardness, elasticity, modulus would be things which
might make differences. There is probably a dampening variable too
but since I don't know about acoustics I don't know what any of those
measures would be called. If you could charicterize the wood by these
measures you might be able to find other woods for the plates that might
be close to the same outcome soundwise. I should get arround to
looking into that some time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(but acoustics is pretty complicated and I am pretty stupid and math
challanged!)

Just some thoughts--

[jessupe goldastini]

sounds pretty cool...mcgyver violin making...i do think that other wood species will sufice....and that perhaps a combo exist that will sound as pleasing as the traditional choices....i know...everyone says don't bother...but hey at this moment in time i'm not doing it for money ...so what the heck.....and i really don't think that if i do start selling my instruments they would be to "amped" players...as much as i enjoy composing and playing classical, theres nothing quite like pluging into my gnx3 and playing some screaming metal violin solos....at that point....internal tone qaulity pretty much goes out the door....one is relying on efects and the processor....still the violin must have a good feel and constrution.....thuis the possibility for other species...

my first one will be white tommorow.....a week sonner that i thought...yea!...

.the next will be spruce top, maple back...brazilian cherry ribs...the cherry bends sweet....i will be doing a Chanot' style violin...no pointy corners...just all round...and instead of a traditional scroll i will be carving a "sunstar" with a large tourmaline set in the center....if any of you "avante garde" makers want a good place for gemstones for inlay...go to thaigem.com....they have good mid grade stones that work nice for exopy insets....end-buttons, scroll eye's...tailpeices...or even instead of purfling...

all the while i do these wild violins i will always be working on one "traditional one"...

i think one should always work on atleast two at a time...that way you have something to do while the glue drys....

[Jack H.]

wonder what ebony ribs would do to the sound.. probably have to make them a lot thinner and the lining a bit thicker...
would LOOK cool at least....

[jessupe goldastini]

hmmm i don't think ebony would bend well ... i will bend some and let you know....however related to wood species that will....

ipe, cumaru, are very strong yet flexible{comparitvley speaking}....both contain lapachol within the natural chemical make up...due to this fact oil varnish should probably be avoided.....alcholol"spirt base"would be a better choice...i made some test strips and had them down to about .80 mil and they seem still structral stable...

other species i want to work with are....lacewood, wenge,purpleheart,american cherry, walnut, beech, honduras mahogony,paduk to name a few...

here again i think theres much adue about sticking to tradition..,particularly if you want to earn a living....i will be humble and absorb all that tradition has to offer...at the same time...as i have nothing to lose but regrets...i will let the imagination run wild....if i ever make money at this... it woiuld be because i do/did it differently than the rest....it just always been my way...

again no disrespect to those who run the board, no disrespect to those who run with the classical snobs, and serve the top players, who want a certain thing...i would like to try that too....but i need to be realistic....there is too much competion in conventionality....too many guys doing this for too long to play catch up{ i'm too old}

if i soon find that andres is correct {a large part of me says that he is correct} i will report all my failures in detail and try to explain why it does/ did not work....

hopefully the website will remain open for some time and the info can be cataloged...

if for nothing else for historys sake i would love to catalog SPECIFIC failures related to using other species

we keep on hearing{ or always have heard} why we should not use other woods, yet with all my very vast research, i have found NO specific data related to sound quality and structral deficiency... "google" acoustical properties of wood species} there are several pdf files related to some extensive testing done in the 60's...

to my ears, there is alot to be said to sticking with "tradition" to achieve a "familliar" pleasant tone...that is expected by those audible recesses of our minds "ear"....however until somes says" ya i built a violin with ipe, cumaru, and red cedar...and it sucked and here's why....i'm just not buying it...or any other combonation...to say ya i built a couple with a , few different species and they were no good...i say thats fine...that was that combo...but what about this one?...unless the've done it, and got specifics about specific wood species combo's..i dunno

so i will be the worlds guinea pig, i will try...if its no good...i'll let you know why...if it sounds really cool but not like a "normal" violin...i let know why....

lets end hearsay, wives tales, and speculation about what works and what does not....these things may have been tried in the past...but where's the failure analisys, wheres the documentation, i keep hearing it, but i see no facts based on science, or real world trail and error....quid sum tunc dicturus

if one said " its not a "traditional" sound...therfore its no good ,perhaps there right...but i just gotta find out for myself...

[Andres Sender]

Ebony is easy to bend, but weird, it is both rubbery and brittle.

No offense, although it's not really nice to call people 'snobs'.

The thing about instrument-making is that there appears to be a market for all sorts of stuff. If you start building alternative stuff more power to you, but your market will be the alternative market and your work will be judged by that standard.

You won't have to worry about a classical 'snob' telling you how your instrument stacks up for classical purposes.

Just don't imagine that you know what the classical standards are if you're not being exposed to them. They are not something you learn in a vacuum.

There's nothing wrong with going in whatever direction you like, so long as that's your goal, and you don't imagine you're doing one thing when actually you're doing something else.

[jessupe goldastini]

oh about the snob thing...well my girlfriend is a snob....all her freinds are snobs....her teacher is a snob....ofcourse this relates to their "ears"... not there person....perhaps i should have defined it better....my best freind from high school...dr. micheal ellison....a fullbright scholar...n.e.a. grant winner....copeland house recipient....professor of theory at the academy of ancient music in istanbul....perhaps the worlds BEST composer at this moment in history....he's a snob for sure....but only related to what he hears....snobs should be revered....

S.{super picky}N.{nothing but the best}O.{obsessive}B.{best muscians in the world}

for example she absolutey nothing nice to say about my first fiddle..hahahaha

[peter gallant]

Jessupe,

I've made decent sounding violins out of non-traditional woods - cherry, mahogany, bubinga, walnut, and some others. They DO NOT sound as good as the high end instruments but they're good. It can be done but it takes a lot of trial and error (or it did for me anyway).

That being said, I'd go with what Andres Senders posted. He definitely knows what he's talking about. I've been reading his posts for years and his suggestions have always worked for me.

Pete