Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 65
Scan 65
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1by means of a dry cloth or brush, a dull, opaque surface of varnish would remain. After a few hours, or at most a day or two, this dull surface spontaneously regained (temp. 60° F.) its former smooth, translucent, bright appearance. This experiment was repeated with various similar varnishes with the same result.
3The particles of varnish which had become disintegrated by friction regained their cohesion after a period of rest.
5The belly or table of a violin is formed of a thin section of firwood (Abies or Picea). The elongated cells or fibres (interspersed with medullary rays) of which it is composed are agglutinated with a soft resin (terpene oxide), sparingly distributed. The proportion of this agglutinant is not enough to constitute with the sclerogen a diaphragm of sufficient homogeneity or endurance to resist permanently the disintegrating influence of strong musical vibrations; when subjected to these, for any length of time, the quality of the sounding-board becomes deteriorated; it does not regain its original condition after a period of rest: apparently the amount of resin present is insufficient to allow of re-cohesion.
7If the exterior surface only of this sounding-board be coated with varnish of such a quality that it is able to permeate the wood to a greater or less depth, a very complex condition of this fibrous diaphragm must ensue; the exterior surface of the wood will be (it may be assumed) completely saturated, while the interior surface will not be reached by the varnish or in any way affected. Between these two extremes of complete saturation and total immunity there will
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.