MIMF

Best modern conjecture is that Viola da gamba and violin were parallely developed during the mid to late 15c, the VdG being fretted and aimed for amateurs; Violins unfretted for professionals. Much more difficult to take advantage of unfretted instrument to mess with the temperament and intonation; ...

Knabe was a popular brand in the Washington DC area, the rebuilding shop I worked for respected them, but each piano we considered in trade was evaluated individually. Condition of the pinblock is the first consideration, renewal of an uprights pinblock often requires a teardown removing at least th...

Seems we are drifting a bit off topic here.. Individual trees will vary in density, some species have larger resonses to moisture change than others. I have seen a lot of poplar, some too soft to hold screws well, others quite a bit tougher; growth conditions varied a lot more 40 years ago, todays l...

Did you see any other catalogs with a similar level of detail?

I am now 63. When I was a teenager, livin in NYC, I had an apartment workbench shop that built nice ship models, but not musical instruments. I had a purchased classical guitar and was exploring flamenco, classical, and folk music. Banjo was an interest, and I spotted a nice head in a pawn shop, bou...

Piano shipping crates can provide prime dunnage; some decades ago Steinway used 2x6 quilted maple inside the crate of a grand; not so horrendous considering the 30k price tag. if you are patient, you might find other sources of good wood cheap. En-route to a used lawnmower I passed a sign advertisin...

I would avoid any non-rigid material, just seems the wrong way to go. Perhaps you could widen the members and lighten the design with light chip carving or side bevels?

Some dip in front of the bridge improves clearance for the RH fingers in play and is a design feature in lutes and guitars (and other instruments with glued-on bridges with tied-on strings); some lutes have a subtle corresponding dip shaped into the sides of the shell. One could raise the bridge to ...

Sadly, I lost the thumb drive on which I had typed the deutch of the introductory discussions of both authors, with it the babelfish'd "english". I am now working on babelfish translation of the per-instrument comments. gonna be months before I get that in hand. Move was very distracting.....

A former roomate took the journal of the Acoustical Society of America (his thing was speach recognition). I found it heavy reading, but noticed numerous articles on musical instrument acoustics, including plate behaviour. If you have access to the library of an engineering school you might find som...

Sorry to join the party late, this is a favorite topic. Drying for lumber (eg, big stuff, like necks) is more of a challenge than thinner stuff, you have to expect spoilage from end checks and allow more length. Cherry will have pitch pockets internally, these make spoilage that is hidden, especiall...

Finally, a connection from home, with the book next to me - I can cite it properly. Darmstaedter, Beatrix and Adrian Brown, _Die Renaissanceblockfloeten der Sammlung alter Musikinstrunte des Kunsthistorischen Museums_, Wien, 2006 ISBN 3 85497 081 1 Sadly, the museums own webpage does not list the vo...

Most of my work is on a mac, so be warned...

It may be that the list(s) you have need to be edited for the new fnt to be included for each category (or not). This concept helps users to cope when thousands of fonts are installed.

I wonder if this is an artifact of development, no way to test until the windway is cut, maybe several head joints were made ahead of time and this was a fix for them... It shows up in both ganassi altos, and in tenors by the same maker; but there are not enough instruments in this museum to do more...

Talking renaissance, ca 1550; no sandpaper.

Windway has nothing to do with this. talking the bore, accessed thru the opnening for the plug or from below.

I suspect there is limited evidence for spot scraping, and as in modern work, that would be limited to small amounts for tuning.

Revisiting this topic, recent discussion didnt cover it well enough. Some altos and tenors in the Vienna collection ( I suspect many others too, but this collection is what I have data on), especially ones from the Bassanos (both 'HIERO S' and !!) show a contraction of a couple (2-3) mm near the top...

Galpin Society Journal.

undercutting the tone hole(s) will smooth the transition between wall and hole, mellowing the effects of turbulence. It will also affect the pitch, so be explorative as you do this. Some discussion of the effects of undercutting, hole location, hole size, and bore perturbations are found in the lite...

All lutes will flex enough during assembly that you really cannot expect to make an accurate copy from line drawing, even working over a mould; dont obsess over it. What is important is to get the rib edges fitted closely enough for a good glue joint and reasonable looking shape. Some Staples stores...

Stable wood which has been 'excercised' thru numerous humidity and temperature cycles is prefered for building instruments of quality. Subtle changes occur in the cell structure over time, and stresses within the wood settle down. The movement of moisture in the wood itself takes some time and induc...