Violin Forum/Message Board

jessupe goldastini · Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject: arching by eye

does everyone here use contour gauges...i did my arching by eye and am very pleased with it... i had the pleasure of observing both a Scarabotto and a Gorio in person at my leisure over the course of a month or so, as well as a croen...so in my mind i was kinda carving elements of all three from visual sighting....when you guys{ whoever} do your arching are you trying to create the same type/s of violin over and over, perfecting one shape...or do you freeform and lets the wood and the gouge tell you what to do....i think, so far i perfer the latter

MANFIO · Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject:

Hi! If I were you, I would use templates for the archings. We use in general the transversal templates. I use mine cut in half.

You can use your eye if you have a very trained one. But observing the varnished archings and reproducing it accurately can be quite difficult.
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jessupe goldastini · Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 1:16 am Post subject:

thank you for the response...i hope to engage you furtehr regarding other topics....i assume your adivise is derived from wanting to achieve a consistancy with the underside graduation?....

DonLeister · Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 11:57 pm Post subject:

I am just starting to use templates from curtate cycloids and cannot give much comment in the way of results, but something I am noticing is how mush more recurve there is with them, not necessarily a deep recurve but sometimes it can be very subtle. This is different from what I have been doing before which was a less deep channeling and a flatter arch.

I'm not sure if this is any help to you, but I don't think I could have come up with this kind of arch without a template.
I have only done a replacement top for one of my violins with cc archings with good results, and am nowe doing a new violin using them.

I don't follow the template strictly, but move it in or out , up or down , as a guide. I prefer a flexible approach.
Don

jessupe goldastini · Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 1:08 am Post subject:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CurtateCycloid.html

ya, here's a good link discribing the principle....

thanks for the input

woodwiz · Junior Member Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 9

More than anything else, I would pay attention to my arching. The shape of the arching seems to be the prime factor in determining the sound of an instrument, providing thicknesses are reasonable. Next most important would probably be the ground and varnish system.

Curtate cycloids do seem to be a fairly good match for classical arching, as long as you keep the arching pretty broad and full, with not too much recurve. If I were just starting out, though, I'd try copying proven models to get my skills down before branching out on my own.

Andres Sender · Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject:

The thing about satisfying yourself without templates is that you have no crosscheck. You think you got it 'cause it looks good, but did you really?

Do you do the shape of the top of the bridge by eye? Why not? Smile

sdantonio · Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject:

Ever since I first started doing this ages ago I have used templates as a general guide. If a particular piece of wood is stiffer (or less stiff) than another you may want to make the arch a bit higher or lower to compensate, but basically I have always made them to the same gereral shape (traced from my teachers templates, who traced his from his teacher, who traced hers from Sacconi).

If you need templates, a good general template to start with would be the ones in the Strobel book. I prefer these to the ones in the strad posters, they just seem a little more cleanly drawn. But the posters have been a staple for years.

Steven