Books › The Repairing & Restoration of Violins, 1903 › scan 77
Scan 77
The Repairing & Restoration of Violins, 1903
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 63. See the scan on archive.org.
1This method of lengthening the neck, however, went out of fashion as connoisseurs and performers, finding the old necks so frequently devoid of figure—the reason being probably that plain wood answered best for the cutting of the volutes—made the repairers remove the whole of the neck and substitute one of the best figure they could obtain.
3This forced fresh attention to the splicing as it is termed of the scroll to the neck or graft, and the method has continued to the present time of clearing away the whole of the neck and using handsome wood. Further impulse was given to the practice by the fact of the fingerboards put by the old makers rising so little above the body of the instrument. The bridge was made very low to accommodate this state of things. The increased rapidity of the movements of the bow from one string to another over the middle ones in the performance of modern music made a higher one absolutely imperative, as the heel of the bow would too frequently chip pieces from the waist curves. There were thus three good reasons at least for placing an entirely new neck on an old violin; firstly the plain wood of the original maker, shortness and the low angle with regard to the plane of the body.
5In order, therefore, that everything may be accomplished with sufficient exactitude, we will begin with the roughly sawn block ready for measuring and shaping up for its destined purpose. The scroll, which is to be replaced on a neck according with modern ideas, we will suppose to be on an Italian violin that has come down to us from the early part of the last century. The violin tuned up to the present concert pitch and music of our period having many of the modern style of difficulties, would prove utterly inadequate to the task of giving out its tones in a manner expected of it.
7In proceeding to work then, the workman executing this modification having selected his block of curled maple, planes it to an oblong of equal breadth. He calculates as to the best position for showing off the curl on each side of the neck when finished. Having decided which is to be the upper part or that covered by the
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