MIMF

Might want to measure carefully. If it's a saddle crack, it may well be far enough outside the bass bar to allow cleats. If it were mine to do, humidify the instrument to close the crack, then work thin hide glue into the crack, probably pushing up from underneath just a bit to open the crack up to ...

It's pretty simple, but it depends on the look you're after. The easiest would be to get some Behlen's 15 minute wood stain in White, thin it around 50/50 with Behlen's reducer for 15 minute stain, and apply it to the wood like you would with kitchen cabinets, wipe thoroughly. The look and amount of...

Oil is used as a lubricant in applying French polish, but very little, if any, is incorporated into the finish. I just use paraffin oil, which doesn't dry, anyway.

One of my colleagues here is from Dublin. He says the weather here is generally colder, but not so damp & windy as it is there.

I've run across two common reasons for raised glue lines: Changes in wood moisture content: If wood is not sufficiently dried, or is moved into a drier environment than where it was stored, it can shrink, in width as well as in thickness. A PVA or aliphatic glue line will allow the wood to "cre...

Minwax stains are mostly a mix of pigments and dyes with an alkyd binder, IIRC (Haven't used them in years). Painters topcoat Minwax stains with lacquer all the time. No problem, as long as you let the stain dry thoroughly so all the solvents escape. Recoat too soon, and you can get a "bloom&qu...

Barry Daniels wrote:Michael and Emmanuel,

I hadn't seen either of you on the MIMF before so let me welcome you aboard.

Michael, Sounds like you got some good experience in the finishing area.

Thanks for the kind words. As far as finishing experience goes, something over 40 years professionally.....

E H Roth violins from the 1920s are known for thick ribs. They are also known for how much better they sound when the ribs are thinned to a more standard thickness.The ribs actually radiate a lot of sound. On trade violins, I wouldn't think that they'd make all that much difference, but on better in...

On a full sized violin, the fingerboard will be about 270 mm, exclusive of the nut. Thickness of the fingerboard does affect the sound a bit, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Fingerboards are planed and dressed (resurfaced) as routine maintenance: remove nut, plane out the worn spo...

We use UV cabinet for drying oil varnish on violins, but French polish is an evaporative finish, and any crosslinking the resins do would take place over a period of years. I think UV would do more harm than good, since it is generally the #1 enemy of clear finishes, when it's not being used to acce...

Hi Samuli, There are ultra high-quality options like isinglass, which is made from sturgeon bladder, and used by glass artists, but it is very expensive and offers no real benefits, while having a shorter working time. FWIW, we've been making our own isinglass glue for over 15 years now, importing ...