Books › An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925 › scan 169
Scan 169
An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925
18 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 143. See the scan on archive.org.
1with a split, beveled cane, which they hold in their right hands.¹ The workmen in the second group go through the same process in the same manner with the intestines, scraping along the side of the internal membrane.
3The fragments detached by the canes are run off into buckets or a trough. Those of the internal membrane can only be used for fertilizer.
5The fragments of the external membrane are later on subjected to appropriate treatment, which permits of their employ in the manufacture of racquets, whips and other rougher articles made of grit. The process used to make them adaptable is very simple: they are placed in a sulphuring room, where they are bleached and partly dried, after which they are drawn and rubbed with dog's grass brushes.
7Second Soaking
9After they have been scraped, the intestines have lost 19/20 of their original volume, for they are now reduced to the fibrous or muscular membrane, and it is on this that the entire attention of the manufacturer is now concentrated.
11The fibrous membranes are separated into bundles of about ten, and are set in stone jars in order to soak for three or four hours in a solution of two quarts of potassa lye, even, preferably, an ammoniacal solution marking two on the salt gauge.²
13After soaking for three or four hours, the membranes are passed one by one between the first finger of the left hand, protected by a ring and a rubber glove, and the thumb of the same hand, armed with a copper thimble. They are then subjected to a species of very careful and gentle rubbing or scraping, by whose means any small fragments either of the external or the internal membranes which may have escaped the initial scraping are removed. In carrying out this operation, which is usually repeated three times, at intervals of two hours during the same day, the workman has at his left the stone jar in which the intestines are kept, and while he is working he places them in a similar jar standing at his right which, like the first jar, contains a solution of permanganate of potassa. The fourth repetition of the process is a "dry" one, since the intestines this time are not dipped into a jar containing the potassa solution. After this fourth rubbing the membranes are dipped into water containing a weak solution of sulphuric acid. On the day following and for several days to come, the operations of wet and dry rubbing and scraping are repeated, morning and evening, care being taken that with each succeed-
15¹ In France the cane used for this purpose is the Arunda Donax, vulgarly known as Provence cane, a large briar.
17² The salt gauge is constructed on the same principle as the aerometer, with the difference that each of the degrees of the latter has ten subdivisions. As to the alkaline solution, it is usually prepared by mixing good quality potassa and graveled cinders in two equal parts.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.