Thursday, January 24, 2019

Varnish variation



I posted my latest varnish routine a few days ago.  Some had questions as to why I did it that way, and not some other way.  Well, multiple reasons, I suppose.  I wanted something I could control.  I wanted something where each step didn't actually take very long.  I wanted something that had easy-to-find products, that are relatively inexpensive.  Also, I don't want to be a varnish-maker.

Most of the color I get in the shellac steps.  I can vary the color through various agents, such as the cochineal 'tea' and the TransTint.  The above photo shows some of the color variation possible.  I shot this in less-than-flattering light, I think, but neutral.  A white blank, and sunlight filtered up and reflecting off a white ceiling.  We finally had some direct sun again today.


This is a couple white violins that I varnished, showing about the range of the colors I have in the shop now.  A redder violin, one I made from scratch, sold not too long ago.  It would have been nice to have that here for these shots, but nicer to have the sale.


Here is a mixture, one of my from-scratch fiddles, the Hardanger on the left, and the rest being whites, 2 violas and a violin.


Another shot of some whites, different reflective angles for the backs.


Here is the back of one of my scratch fiddles, in glancing light.  I find it hard to photograph varnish and bring out the details I like to see.  What I'm trying to show here is the texture, which comes mostly from the clear oil varnish final coating, maybe 2.  It has that leather-like look to it.  Being this is one of my handmade fiddles, it wasn't buffed down to car-door smoothness.  In fact, I actually did a fairly bad job of smoothing this one out, unintentionally.  I can even see some toothed-plane marks in the back.  Not sure how I missed that, but I did.  Fortunately, I do like the sound of this fiddle, and have been playing it for a year or so now.  We are compatible.  Not too interested in selling it, and have grown to like the tool-marks that I keep finding.


Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Whidbey Island Scottish Fiddle (and Cello!) Workshop


Just back from a too-quick trip up to the Puget Sound region for the Whidbey Island Scottish Fiddle (and Cello!) Workshop.  The teachers were Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas.  It was held at Camp Casey, and the photo above is looking north from the grounds, with a typical blue Puget Sound January sky.

It was a fast camp, fast learning, or, for me, fast partial learning.  We started Friday night with a class, then all day Saturday, learning tunes, arranging them for a concert at Coupeville High School.  I like to think I'm a reasonable ear-learner, but by the concert time on Sunday, the 5 tunes were a jumble in my head.  I could play bits and pieces.  Fortunately, I recorded them and will have plenty to work on for the next couple months, at least.

Top-notch instruction.  A huge class, 115 or so instruments, mostly fiddles, in a single classroom.  I didn't get many photos.  Here's one, with Natalie talking about back-up techniques, and Alasdair sitting.  He stood most of the time, and when he was teaching, I was not taking photos, full concentration on trying to keep up.


Here's a shot during a break, where the two of them are going through the next tune to come up.


Tunes we learned: Leslie's March, Humours of Whiskey, Had 'er Gown, Cali's Wedding, Flatbush Waltz, and Ca Ye By Atholl.  A big variety of tune styles, and a fair number of tunes to get under your fingers in less than 48 hours.

But we pulled-off the concert Sunday afternoon.  My family (5 of them there) in the audience said it sounded great.  100 or so of us on stage for the grand finale.  Alasdair and Natalie played the first section of the concert, after a warm-up by the local band of young men, 'the Reds', who also did a great job.  Here's one photo I managed to snap of the two masters at work.


We stayed in the camp quarters, and were lucky enough to get a second floor room on the far-end, so we had the ocean waves to listen to at night.  Good digs.


On the way up, we stopped in Seattle to look about.  My main interest was the new Nordic Museum, which I hadn't been to yet, and especially since they had a special traveling exhibit on the Vikings.


Direct from Sweden.  One artifact that really caught my eye was this bit from a boat burial.  Here are some of the clinker side planks, and laying there, a bunch of arrows in a quiver.


Upstairs, in the regular exhibit,  I was surprised to see a scale model of the Oseberg ship.


And a good 3-D look at one of my current scroll models.


Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Varnish sequence, for these two instruments.


I took this photo a couple days ago.  The sun was coming in through my south-facing windows, striking on a coat of freshly laid-on clear varnish.  I thought it was a pretty image, and to my surprise, others thought so as well.  I've gotten more comments on this image than any I can recall previously.

Folks are asking about my varnish procedure, so I thought I'd just go ahead and write out what I've done here.  I am indebted to others, probably too many to mention, but I would point out that many of my starting points are due to Michael Darnton, and the workshop he leads in Claremont, California, each summer.  If you are interested in violin-making, you should consider his workshop.

  Southern California Violin Markers Workshop

I have purchased varnish of various sorts from commercial outlets such as International Violin and from small makers, such as Joe Robson.  Joe leads a workshop in varnishing.  I haven't attended that one, but have heard of, and seen, good results from it.

I've made varnish from scratch with my fellow violinmaker, Ruston Ruwe.  It's a lot of work, and not always successful.  Ruston has far more talent for it than I do, and is more willing to experiment with it.

Geoff Richings, my friend on Flickr, turned me onto the oil-paint-slurry method, which requires some experimentation.

In my earlier days, I was intrigued by the idea of duplicating the ancient Cremonese varnish.  I have since decided I won't live long enough to do that.  And I have plenty of other issues to deal with.

Secondly, I got interested in 'weird' instruments, such as pochettes, 5-string fiddles, and Hardanger fiddles.  Getting away from conventional violins somehow gave me the freedom, the permission, to just get some sort of varnish protection on the instruments, string them up, see what they sound like, and adjust from there.

Warning 1: I seldom like the results of my varnish.  My current goal with varnishing is to have something I find inoffensive.

Warning 2: The method that follows here is the first time I have done it exactly this way.  It's based on previous things that sort of worked, and yet I wanted to try something different, to get a better result.  I'm not unhappy with this one yet.  But next time I'll probably do something slightly different, or maybe completely different.

These are two instruments not of my making, but whites made in Bulgaria.  The violin in the sunlight is a master-grade instrument, relatively expensive, that I bought through Ned Nikolov in Colorado, who imports them.  I could not find a web-link for Ned, but a Google search under 'Ned Nikolov violin' will get you to him.  I use the phone to contact him.

My process here is slow, because I have repair work, my own making, fiddle lessons to teach, gigs to play, and time spent writing the occasional blog post.  I won't mention time wasted on Facebook or searching for useless information of various sorts.  On the other hand, allowing more time for each layer to dry has actually contributed to better results.  Don't be in a hurry.

November 2018 -- remove the fingeboards.  Not necessary, but I find it easier to work the varnish process that way.  Clean up the wood with horsetail.  As they come, these whites are full of buffer marks, swirls, cuts, and glue stains that you can see with glancing incident light.  Time spent here is important.  The smoother the wood is, the better reflectivity one will have.  Tough on the spruce, because I like the corduroy effect in my own instruments, but on these whites, that has been scrubbed out mechanically.  Many customers like very smooth tops, so it works.  I suppose it reminds them of factory instruments, or corpse-like old instruments that have been polish many, many times.  A lively corduroy in the spruce appeals to some.  Myself, for example, and other eccentrics.

13 November -- seal the spruce with Knox gelatin, very dilute.  You can find this in your grocery store.  I don't want the end-grains of the spruce to soak up the stain I am going to add.

14 November -- A coat of Hammerl JOHA Water Stain 421 at 11:30 am.  A coating of JOHA 2210 Primer, colorless, at 5:30 pm.

19 November -- A second coat of the 2210 primer, 9:30 am.

28 November -- A layer of garnet shellac.  I got this shellac in flake form from Highland Woodworker.  I made a 1-lb cut, which for my uses is 1 oz of shellac flakes to 1 cup of alcohol, Everclear, food grade.  One can do just as well using Bullseye Amber from the hardware store.  As it comes, it needs to be diluted down quite a bit.  And I can never use up a full can before it goes bad.  After it opens, you only have a couple months before it degrades.  After that, it won't quite dry properly.  You can use it to coat the chicken coop, but don't use it on a fiddle.

Followed this with 4 more shellac coats, 1 each on November 29 & 30, and December 4 & 5.

04 December --  a coat of shellac to which I have added cochineal tea and blue dye.  I don't have precise measurements, but do it by eye.  It is very easy to add too much of either, but particularly the blue.  The blue is TransTint Blue #6022.  I got it from the local Woodcraft store; it is readily available elsewhere as well.

The cochineal tea is my invention, though I'm sure others do it.  I haven't heard of it elsewhere.  So far, it seems to work.  My wife is interested in fabrics, and one day, while hanging out in yet another yarn store as she looked around, I happened to notice a jar of Cochineal fabric dye.  I bought the 30-gram jar several years ago and now have less than half a jar left.

To make the tea, I put some of the ground Cochineal dye into alcohol and let it dissolve for a few days.  I can then pour some of this directly into the dissolved shellac.  Depending on how much shellac I have, I then add a drop, maybe two, of the blue TransTint.

And it's good to mention at this point, that I always have a couple scraps of maple that I have been varnishing along with my instruments.  I can experiment on these as I go, just to make sure things don't look too weird.

05 December -- In a dinner plate or similar surface, mix burnt umber oil paint with mineral spirits, to make a slurry.  Rub this over all of the varnished surface (not the neck) until it looks like it has been dipped in raw sewage, then wipe most of it off.  You will note a color change.

10 December -- a second coat of the shellac/cochineal/blue, mostly to protect the rather fragile dried oil-paint coat.

11 December -- A coat of International Violin Dark Brown #1010DB oil varnish.  Not a true oil varnish, but seems to work.  I apply the varnish with a Wooster 1-inch (25-cm) brush that I bought at the hardware store.  After varnishing, I put the brush into a jar of mineral spirits while I tend to other things, then wash it out with warm water and soap in the kitchen sink.

Two more coats of the dark brown IV varnish, December 12 and 17.

08 January 2019.  I scrape the chamfers down to the wood, and apply India ink with a brush.

09 January -- touch up the blackened chamfers with India ink, to make the black more uniform.

12 January -- Clear oil varnish, International Violin 1011c.  Second coat on 14 January.  Third coat this morning, 16 January.

I think that will be it.  Now to let them sit for 2-4 weeks, then a final polish and set them up to playability.

Between all of the coats of all the products, I go over the instrument in good, bright light, and in glancing light, looking for dust specks, brush marks or hairs, any weirdness.  Rub that out at the time.  Smooth is of interest here.

And I use multiple thin coats, rather than fewer, thicker coats.  I wish I could do it in fewer coats, but I can't control them when they get thick.

My process here is not the way Stradivari did it, so if you want to have an argument about that, I would direct you to one of the several violinmaking forums online.  I have other work to do.





Monday, January 14, 2019

Varnish and a chinrest


The smell of varnish in the morning.  Put a second coat of clear oil varnish on these two this morning.  Neither are of my make, they are Bulgarian whites.  The one in the foreground left is a 16-inch viola, and the ones of this make I've had in the past have been rather nice sounding.  The one in the light, in the background, is a master-grade violin.  I have never spent this much money on a white instrument before, so an experiment, or a gamble, depending on the point of view.

I think these might be done with varnishing.  Now to hang out for a while, let the varnish harden, then set them up and see how the play.

Working on a customer's instrument on the bench today, a 3/4 violin with a Juzek label.  Caught the light just right, and noticed these grinder marks in the chinrest.


You may need to zoom in to see them properly.  They appear to come from some sort of drum sander, used to shape the cup of the chinrest.  I like finding tool marks.  Gives a clue as to how things were done.

Here's a side view.


You might notice the little bit of wear on the right side of the chinrest.  Not ebony, but painted black to appear so.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

January Boise Contra Dance


Oh, that's us!  Swing!


Good turnout at the 2nd Saturday dance in Boise last night.  Always fun to play for a big, happy group of folks.  Plenty of newcomers, and they did great.  Hope to see them back again.


Took these shots during a few of the walk-throughs.  Haven't yet figured out how to take photos while playing for the dance.  Maybe some sort of hat device.  Something to think about.  Another day.


Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Viking chest



I've been wanting to make a basic medium-sized tool chest for the shop. Unrelated, in the past couple of years, we've had to do a bit of remodeling, or repair, that required a few sheets of sheetrock.  The sheetrock delivery included a nearly half-inch thick, 4'x8' sheet of chipboard, of the roughest kind.  Being frugal, I put it aside, thinking I might find some use for it somewhere.

Holidays are a disruption to ones normal schedule, and a chance to do something different.  

So, these things combined.  I found a few line drawings of Viking sea chests, and settled on a few folks' idea of one found on the Oseberg ship.  I modified the information I found a little, and a little more as construction continued.  I used the chipboard, nasty stuff, and roofing nails to supply the decorative nailing, as the thing was clamped & glued together with Elmers carpenter glue.  I had a small, opened can of Minwax laying about, so used it to stain the chipboard, the color being Provincial 211.  In another day, I'll through a layer or two of blonde shellac over it, to give it a little more protection, the shellac being stuff that is otherwise going to go bad before I can use it up.

The only thing I had to buy was the hardware, and I went over to our local D&B feed store, found some fence/shed hardware, 2 strap hinges and a clasp, the least expensive I could find.  I think the total there, with 6% sales tax, was just under $18.

I'll account my time to Holiday entertainment.  And we have our annual Viking party coming up, so someone might find it a handy place to sit, maybe grab onto an oar.

And yes, this is ridiculous, but that's part of the fun.  It will function as a tool-storage box, at the least.