Books › A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments : together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments, 1875 › scan 19
Scan 19
A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments : together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments, 1875
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 3. See the scan on archive.org.
1may be used, the pieces when cut measuring six inches in breadth.
3After the wood thus prepared has been exposed to the air for five or six years (but not to the sun or rain), it may be employed in the manufacture of violins.* For this purpose,
5* Since the publication of the first German edition of this work, several artificial means have been employed in order to prepare the wood for the manufacture of violins, &c. Thus, in the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung for 1839, p. 1046, Schlick is mentioned as having discovered a process (not described) for depriving wood of the water, acid, resin, &c., which it contains, by which means he was enabled to make violins with a tone scarcely distinguishable from that of the best old Italian instruments; and in the Bulletin for 1822, issued by the Paris Society for the Encouragement of National Industry, it is stated that an establishment was then formed at Vienna for preparing wood intended to make musical instruments, &c., by steaming it in a room or chest 10 feet by 5, made of strong boards, well joined. "This steam, by penetrating the pores of the wood, softens the vegetable parts, and renders them susceptible of being dissolved. The steam condensed in the chest forms, in the lower part, a liquor at first but slightly coloured, which becomes deeper as the operation proceeds; at length it is quite clear, and acquires a very decided acid taste. This is let off by a proper pipe. The operation commonly lasts 60 hours. The wood is afterwards taken out and dried in a stove heated to 42° or 48° Reamur (= 126½° or 140° Fahrenheit). The dessication lasts two or three days, when the boards are half an inch thick; but, if thicker, several weeks, or even months, are necessary. This wood acquires such a degree of dryness as to resist all the variations of the atmosphere; its colour increases in intensity, particularly the wood of the walnut-tree, cherry-tree, and maple. It becomes firmer and more sonorous, which is a great advantage for musical instruments. Sound-boards for pianos resound much better than the common ones. Violins also acquire the quality of the esteemed old instruments, of which the true merit is due perhaps to the slow dessication which the wood composing them has undergone."
7C. A. Galbusera, who, in the year 1832, manufactured violins and tenors of a simplified form (that is, without corners—the sides being bent into a shape resembling that of a guitar, like the violins of M. Chanot; see Note*, p. 74), is said to have previously applied to the wood he used a peculiar chemical preparation of his discovery,
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