Beauty may happen in the dynamics of lines, in the tension between strength and fragility, in the shimmering game between light and shadow ... This is what I love about violin making.
Casts of 1727 and 1704 Stradivarius violins helps me make up my mind about which gouge to choose for the fluting and where to target the deepest point.
Apart from the choice of the gouge, the depth is always one crucial decision to take when cutting the fluting. Stradivari seams to have gone down to a thickness of 3.5 mm when fluting the c-bouts. For the rest of the fluting, he went to 3mm. Further into the arching, the fluting is at times considerably deeper - as can be seen in the second section of the cast in the back.
At the Lutherie event in May 2017, my colleague Robert Brewer Young and my self were invited to inspire a crowd of students, amateurs and professional violin makers. I showed them my recent work on Stradivari forms and representative violins for most of the 10 forms found in the Museo del Violino in Cremona.
Lamp black and linseed oil leave letters with a particular flow when printed on paper. But then, paper varies a lot in its absorbing properties: this one absorbs very little, it appears a bit waxy- the ink just stays neatly where the stamp placed it.
The gent who sold it to me at the antiques book shop in Camden Town, said it dated from around 1750. He didn't have any blank paper, but this one, featuring a tall and very narrow church tower has space for seven labels.
Ben de Wulf stamps Strad's circular Logo
A coulple of days after I published this post, my colleague Andrew Ryan posted his method of printing lables on his facebook wall. There was quite a bit to learn from, and this is why we made some more, this time using a roller to spread the ink on the marble and a vice for printing.
The ink works well at the consistency of a paste rather then ink.
Gianmaria Stelzer, looking rather pleased to be messing around with home made ink.
These are printed on paper that was hand made in 2003 at the Papiermühle in Basel.
