LUTHIER

Varnishing Method

In short, I either use Shellac or oil varnish from the International Violin Company. This is not a paid endorsement for them but they have good stuff so I don't mind extending them a link. I use the standard procedure of prep the white instrument, dye it with alcohol-based coloring, seal it, apply coats of color varnish (sanding and cleaning with tack rag in between), apply coats of clear varnish (sanding and cleaning with tack rag in between), pumice (mineral oil) and rottenstone (water) polishing, french polish (oil and shellac), wax (carnuba) and buff (cotton). This process takes about two months to complete and includes UV drying time in the hot summer sun. Also, I would personally recommend recruiting and training other people for the sanding and polishing steps. I now understand why the Italian masters had assistants. There is so much sanding, rubbing, and polishing involved that you will really work your forearm and finger muscles into fatigue. I couldn't imagine attempting to finish hundreds of violins by hand.

Update: In 2009, I refinished my Strad model fiddle with only Shellac and I've been very pleased with the results. Years after having completed it, I read a french polish article on a classical guitar website and discovered that they never use oil varnish to finish their guitars - they only use shellac. I thought that was interesting and intriguing actually. See for yourself...

Fitting a bridge

I once purchased a bridge tool from somewhere like International or Stewart MacDonald. This tool has soft feet, an arched top, and a brass screw which is used to hold the strings in place while you remove and replace the bridge behind it. This tool is very useful while adjusting the top of your bridge. As previously mentioned, this tool has an arch on top to match the general curve of the majority of bridges out there. Unfortunately, I took the arch a little too literal and always tried to match my bridge top arch to the tool arch. MANY years later, I figured out that most all fingerboards are not the same, and therefore, the bridge must match the fingerboard and not the bridge tool. To make a long story short, I now match my bridges to the fingerboard; typically, with about a 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, 4.5mm string heights (e,a,d,g, respectively) and I taper the bridge from 1.5mm on top down to about 7mm at the base. I also like to use the standard bridge blanks and remove material from the two circles just above the feet. I work the circles out and my bridges end up appearing a little more like a baroque bridge (lots of air) instead of a modern bridge (mostly wood). I have found that widening these circles give the sound more clarity and transparency. What I mean by transparency is that the notes speak clearly from the instrument and there is much less sound of the wood and the physical instrument (scratchy sound). In other words, the music predominates the sound over the natural noise of the instrument. Kind of like a good stereo speaker. I suppose it can be difficult to explain but once you alter a bridge in this manner, then compare the before and after results, you will understand my point.