Violin Forum/Message Board

L P Reedy · Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:40 pm Post subject:

I spent my working life as an analytical chemist. All of the published studies I have seen were flawed in one way or another. Some of Nagyvary's make no sense except that he is trying to prove his current theory (or disprove somebody else's). Others are good as far as they go, but at best the number of relevant samples is too small to mean much. "Irrefutable evidence?" To you maybe. Not to me.

Michael Darnton · Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:43 pm Post subject:

'zactly.

violinarius · Member Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 171

Michael Darnton · Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:51 pm Post subject:

I just rechecked the Raymond White study of, as the Strad magazine put it in the sub-head, "Cremonese Varnish". White checked one Seraphin (Venice, not Cremona), one Zanetto (Brescia, not Cremona), and one Tononi (Bologna, not Cremona). I had forgotten that detail. :-) But he had the most interesting discussion of anything I've read about the topic because he was so unsure, indefinite, about many of the things he might have seen. I liked the flavor of the article. :-)

Condax did good work, but I've seen some of the samples, and no way some could have even come from violins. I confirmed with a friend working around Wurlitzer at the time that some of the guys in the shop were feeding Condax things like pieces of furniture from home. So much for that.

The restorers I've spoken with agree that the layers on the Woodhouse/Barlow experiment were probably read displaced by one layer.

Nagyvary has already been discussed.

What else is there?

violinarius · Member Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 171

violinarius · Member Joined: 14 Dec 2007 Posts: 171

Michael Darnton · Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:39 am Post subject:

When restorers clean a violin "completely" they always leave a skin of the last layer of what doesn't belong in order to avoid touching the original varnish at all. Polish or retouching varnish has a very different texture from original varnish--smooth and glassy, as thin as possible, unbroken, textureless, content-free. Original varnish has texture and holes, and stuff in it.

Every restorer I've asked about the famous photomicrograph of layers says that the very thin top layer, that the researchers called original varnish, is a skin of polish or retouch and that the next layer down is the original varnish. So every layer from there down is misplaced by one layer. The thick layer that the researchers called the rubble layer is the restorers' colored varnish layer. The researchers maintained that the thickest layer there is the rubble layer, and is invisible to restorers! An amazing and impossible claim, but a necessary one to make the research claims fit.

There are serious problems with the study that only a restorer would catch; the researchers dismissed the restorers' opinions and observations from decades of working with the instruments--they didn't fit with their conclusions. I tried to make the ideas mesh for me, and they just didn't.

One of the more interesting things I did was make a varnish which used a very weak lake color that I made. The resulting varnish was sort of a color putty held together with varnish. The surface looked just like the remaining untouched surface on the Messiah Strad. If you looked at it under a microscope and took it apart, I imagine it would look at act like the supposed "rubble" layer.

For me, the research has too many problems to take seriously.

Geemac · Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 10:27 am Post subject:

Go here and scroll down.

http://www.leroydouglasviolins.com/varnish.htm

Not every maker applied the material. It is thought that much of material was applied to prevent insect damage and some was likely used as a wood sealer/ground.
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GeeMac

Michael Darnton · Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:07 am Post subject:

Ah, yes, the bad analysis I was talking about:

The photo is there next to it.

I think you can read that page as everything that anyone at any time has suggested might be going on, plausible or not, with evidence or not. It's an overview of much that's been written about painting and varnish.

I particularly like his picture of his "latest" ground--"latest" is a step in the process. We're all still looking for The Answer, but I don't think anyone has found it.

L P Reedy · Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 6:38 pm Post subject:

If researchers would take the extra step and try to actually replicate their "findings," the conclusions would very often come out differently. I have yet to see this part of the scientific process included in any violin-related publication.

Michael Darnton · Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:03 pm Post subject:

You know, I should have realized that. You're right. They'd have to go find another piece of wood, though. :-)

It would be better, though, if someone else replicated it rather than the original testers. I have yet to see any study replicate any other--they all get something different.

CT Dolan · Member Joined: 29 Jun 2008 Posts: 143

A while ago I came across this information (the particulate ground layer bit), and something about it has never sat right with me. Nevertheless, I was not in a position to refute what I had read and took it in my usual trusting way as being representative of what actually existed. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that people might have given bogus samples for study (although I always wondered how they got their hands on even miniscule scraps of authentic material).

Michael Darnton · Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:55 am Post subject:

That incident was a long time ago, but nevertheless, you will find even today that many makers and restorers don't want you to know what they think they know.

Real, in-depth and correct information is so scarce in this business, and, worse, we don't really know what they did 350 years ago to make their violins. There are two common coping strategies: hoard, or deny the value of the information itself (or the value of those instruments). If you don't know, the best you can do is both look like you do but you're not telling, and to deny that there's anything important that you could want to know that you don't. There's a lot of that in the violin world.

CT Dolan · Member Joined: 29 Jun 2008 Posts: 143

It seems the best way to gauge someone's true knowledge is by virtue of their work, as in this alone is nothing left to speculation. Either it is very good, or it is not, both with regard to the tonal, as well as the visual.

Geemac · Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 9:51 pm Post subject:

I've been looking at varnish recipe's and ground material and chemicals. Many of the elements found under the Stradivarius varnish also occur in the recipes from those days. Perhaps the elements and chemicals in tbhe varnish settled out of the finish as is dried and that is the reason for the thin layer of material between the varnish and the wood.
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GeeMac