Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 54
Scan 54
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1apart from affinity, no reasonable time is allowed for absorption.
3Let us, firstly, consider the question which M. Savart raises relating to climatic influences.
5It is somewhat remarkable that the relations of varnish and moisture to the wood of a violin have not been, ere now, exactly defined. Such questions may not be neglected, because eventually they may prove to be of great importance. When, during the course of these experiments, the time had arrived for testing varnish on a virgin violin ("in the white"), the first thing requisite was to accurately weigh the instrument. A coat of one of the oil-varnishes, hereafter described, was laid on with a brush; as soon as the varnish was sufficiently dry, the violin was again weighed: it weighed rather less than it did originally. This result was certainly unexpected. The same experiment was repeated with another instrument—with the same result. One of two things must have happened:—1st. The varnish had displaced from the wood something heavier than itself (? water); or 2nd. While the varnish was drying, the wood had lost more weight by elimination of moisture than it had gained by the coat of varnish.
7On close investigation it was found not to be so easy to determine the exact weight of an unvarnished violin as might be supposed; the weight was never constant from one day to another. If the instrument was hung up in a room where the temperature is practically constant, at about 16° C. (60° F.), its weight changed with changes of weather which affected the hygroscopic condition of the air.
9The weight of a virgin violin (without finger-
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