Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › The violin and the art of its construction : a treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895 › scan 34

Scan 34

The violin and the art of its construction : a treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895

10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 28. See the scan on archive.org.

1strings as strong as a full-sized violin, for owing to the shorter length, the strings, if they be a weak set, become too loose and do not give a true sound, and offer insufficient resistance under the pressure of the bow.
3XX. THE VARNISH.
5There has been for many years a warm and to a certain extent undecided discussion going on, as to whether the varnishes used by Italian violin makers were oily and slow-drying ones or spirit varnishes. To investigate this matter still further, and to arrive at a correct decision, will have to be left to the future.
7I am, however, of the opinion that the old masters made use of spirit or turpentine-oil until the middle of last century, but never of linseed-oil or turpentine-oil varnish, as has been often asserted.
9My opinion is supported by the following fact. In the year 1860 I had the good fortune to buy a real Nicolas Amati lute which, although very much knocked about, still retained a thick varnish of a most beautiful gold colour. For my information I took the varnish off, in order to submit it to the analysis of a clever chemist who, being a talented amateur violinist and also a pupil of Spohr, showed great interest in the matter and communicated to me, as the result of his investigations, this fact that among the quantity of varnish which I had placed at his command, there was not a trace of evidence which could lead to the conclusion that linseed-oil varnish had been employed. In my own researches I found that the varnish was immediately dissolved in spirit of only 90 per cent., while in oil of turpentine and linseed-oil it was scarcely affected, and by boiling only a small portion was removed. Again, it is not

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