Books › Violin making, 1902 › scan 147
Scan 147
Violin making, 1902
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 89. See the scan on archive.org.
1whilst a mellowness clings to the very name, the reverse on all points being the case with spirit, the surprise is that varnish other than of oil should be tolerated.
3Besides, see the difference in wear. Use a violin coated with spirit, and if the friction from its employment be severe, you have cracks, pieces chipping here and there, the instrument getting barer and barer daily, so that in time little of it, the varnish, is left. But it is not so with oil; the wear is wear, not in chips, but in gradual diminishing of its substance, always a something being left; added to which a beauty springs from such, in that softer gradations of colour radiate and form a greater depth, from the fact of such colour or colours being more readily absorbed.
5Again, in their relations to Tone, I place the oil varnishes first; and I think the point is pretty generally conceded, for what is on the face power, which some attribute to the brittle, assertive nature of the gums hardened by alcohol, is not in reality such, but often aggressive noise, losing itself the more you retreat from it, leaving real tone little to say for itself.
7But coat the violin with oil; you certainly cannot complain of loud, rasping responses to the call of the bow, whilst you can make some assertion as to quality. And, remember, as the soft nature of the oil assumes a harder tendency day by day, so will increase the sonority of the tones, whilst retaining the beauty of character with which they began. Therefore, I shall draw your attention to the use of oil varnish, utterly discarding that of spirit.
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