Violin Forum/Message Board

[Benedict White]

Has any one got an opinion on this article:
http://liutaiomottola.com/myth/varch.htm

According to it, Strads mostly have fairly evenly (though not entirely uniform) tops, that are thinner in the middle than at the edges. (Makes some sense given the tools he used to thickness them).

[L P Reedy]

My opinion is that the article is a misrepresentation of what Sacconi said. Around 1900 the Hills' measurements showed that Strad tops were pretty even all over. Doesn't seem like news to me.

[Benedict White]

Ah, I see... caught in the trap of listening to one side of an argument when in fact there isn't one...

So Strads are even all over... makes sense if I understand his graduation tool correctly, which also seems much easier to use than the modern equivalent that measures thickness.

[Michael Darnton]

There are a couple of ways to think of this problem. The easiest is that since the edges at the purfling are originally about 3.5mm thick, before any antiquing, and the center around 2.5mm on most Strads, you can't have any other situation than the center being thinner than the edges. Then it becomes a matter of how you get from 3.5mm to 2.5mm. On good violins, this doesn't happen right away at the linings--the thickness goes down gradually over a distance of an inch or two. The center is farthest from the edges, so it should be thinnest. Add that it's the part that sticks up and is easiest to scrape, and it can easily get thinner.

When this subject came up (the first printed mention of it that I'm aware of is in a book from 1937, but it's common knowledge in shops that work on this type of violin) it didn't seem like a revelation to me, just a comment on the obvious. If you look at Jeff Loen's charts, the difference he sees is often in mere tenths of a mm--not enough for the Hills, who measured in 64ths, to have noted--and it's more statistical than grossly obvious.

And that's what I thought until I measured a virtually new del Gesu that had a bathtub-shaped depression under the bridge that was 2.6mm surrounded by 3.2+mm everywhere else. So now I wonder if it was intentional, and got smoothed out over time, by a couple hundred years of "restoration".
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[Benedict White]

Many thanks Michael, very helpful!

[DBurns]

[quote="Michael Darnton"]
And that's what I thought until I measured a virtually new del Gesu that had a bathtub-shaped depression under the bridge that was 2.6mm surrounded by 3.2+mm everywhere else. So now I wonder if it was intentional, and got smoothed out over time, by a couple hundred years of "restoration".[/quote]

I'm confused.
What do you mean by smoothed out?
Is it a depression that was made by restorers?

[Michael Darnton]

I didn't state that well. I meant I wondered if they all maybe started like that, but the rapidity of the change in grads, and it's obviousness, became erroded in more-worn instruments.
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