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 37

Scan 37

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

12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 31. See the scan on archive.org.

1that the interior had also received a coating, probably to protect it from dust, etc. The celebrated old violin makers, in so doing, have pursued the right course. This discovery also corroborated my own supposition, that the old masters varnished both the interior and bridge of the instruments they made.
3Now, in order to obtain a ground-priming, I paint the violin, when the wood of which it is constructed is in its natural state, three times with pyroligneous acid, with which a golden-brown underground is obtained, then follows a single coating of spirit and balsam of Peru in equal proportions, and after this one or two coats of a weak solution of gamboge or anotta, and finally, over all this I lay on 20 or 30 coats of varnish, according to the thickness required, and which I prepare as follows: —
5Dissolve three parts of sandarac and one of mastic in spirit, and in order that it may be laid on more easily, add to each half a litre*) of varnish, ten drops of oil of turpentine. The colouring of the varnish I obtain from turmeric and bright red sandal-wood by means of spirit, using more or less of it, according as to the lighter or darker tone required; if a brown varnish is required, some soot from turpentine-oil must be added to the spirit.
7I have made innumerable experiments with other resins and colouring matters, but in the end I always return to those mentioned above as the best to be used. Dragon's-blood must not be employed, the colour not being fast.
9When the varnish is dry, it must be very carefully polished with finely powdered pumice-stone and linseed-oil, applied with a piece of felt.
11*) Half a litre is very little less than a pint.

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