Topic: Stradivari's secret to violin making

[piersdad]

 From the book
 

In The Secret of Stradivari (1979), Simon F Sacconi revealed, among other things, the complexities which explain the exceptional beauty of the old Cremonese varnish, Stradivarius' in particular

I have this book and yes the varnish is exceptional to have survived still flexible after 200 plus years.
The book was translated from Italian to English and a 2nd person wrote it with the information related to him by sacconi.
Sacconi restored over 300 strad violins and

One eureka moment lost to an amateur reader was the small mistake made by stradivari on one of his last violins
 it was just a slip of the chisel or knife and it positively showed that stradivari assembled the back and front of the violin with the edges unfinished and then put the inlay or purfling in and rounded the edges.

THEN-- he did the final tuning and thinning of the top and back so that they were a perfect semitone apart in their tap tones.

All other makers would finish and tune the top and back

 BEFORE?-- they glued them together and to do this accurately--? with the edges perfectly aligned in the 1 minute you have to assemble it with the hot glue is almost impossible.
 The result of the latter method is the great difficulty of tuning the plates to each other and they are always identifiable by uneven overhang of the edges (some times only .3 of a millimetre but easily observed)


So when a stradivari violin was inspected by his fellow violin makers they would be amazed that he was able to position the top and backs so perfectly and they could not.

And blamed the varnish and not the method of construction
I use the strad method and it produces exceptional results

other secrets i use

The tops are made from Canadian cedar and this wood is slightly lighter and has a defiantly better ring when hit with a knuckle than sitka spruce
I find when the top is fully formed that tapping it produces a very clear ring  where as sitka spruce  seldom does.

        I only made one cello from sitka spruce and it sounded   dull and lifeless and I had a very hard job to tune it and get a good sound from it.
        My edges are a little thicker on top particularly as this gives the cello a bit more strength when plonked on its side.
      To compensate  for this i make the perfiling a little deeper and the ditch at the sides a little sharper.
      When doing this while glued on the sides I tap the top and or back  with the finger as i plane the wood down to thickness and the sound changes as i get the precise  thickness.
      With this method i can also get the inner part of the perfiling  exactly over the inner edge of the lining of the ribs.
      As well the perfiling layers -black white black- are weakly glued together with contact glue and this means the perfiling then acts as a hinge and stop's the top and back from working loose.
     I also use australian jarra for the finger board as this acts as a sort of pendulum over the  front and this imparts a harmonic to the sound as well as helping to deaden the very high harmonics that sound like a fingernail on a black board.
   The ebony boards are too heavy and too stiff and actually may be detrimental to the sound of the instrument.
so now you have read some of my secrets 

for a very good site onmaking cellos  go to here

http://osnesviolins.com/


My backs of sycamore are 290 thousands of inch centre to 120 at edges but this varies as the density and sound of the wood as i work it.
generally weigh 710 gramms  and the edges  when trimmed  take about 10 grams off


fronts-- vary between 120 though to 200 thousands of inch according to the density of the growth rings and space between them
             Even strad had no set thickness but i think his cello backs were about 690 grams finished
and the fronts about 400 to 450 gramms


contact me at  03 9814888
or 88A Mackworth st
christchurch
nz
if you want to test or play one of my cellos