I never get tired of watching your channel. I enjoy learning from you. I wish I had the conviction in my youth to learn the violin. I went with oboe. Now I am learning violin and enjoying it a lot.
I don't play or do any work on "bowed" instruments, but still I am here soaking in on the knowledge. I do build other instruments as a hobby though. There's a lot to learn here that can be used in many crafts. Thanjs for sharing! ❤️
Olaf - What notes are you aiming for when you tap tune a back and top? Some say they should not be a natural or exact sharp/flat note to help prevent having a predominant note and wolfing. Best!
Oddly enough I have a cheap German violin to repair, where the bottom plate is nicely finished inside but the top plate inside looks like it was made by a chap who did dug out canoes on a Friday afternoon. I have to make some tools first. I was also going to thickness the top to smooth it out.
Had a violin maker tell me that old violins with cracks can NEVER have varnish touched up or they'll never be able to be repaired again. Same violin maker said that once a violin is cracked, if the cracks open again, you should just throw it away cause it's "only" worth 3k or so. Do you often hear of fake violin makers or ones that haven't been traditionally trained giving horrible information like that? That maker had only been in business 6 months.
Hopefully, he didn't last much longer. Telling people to throw away their instruments??!?!?! That's Horrible. I would not want someone,like that, to touch any instrument of mine, even he thought it was wonderful.
Olaf, when you are tap tuning your plates, do you try to avoid matching an open string note, to limit harmonics? P.S.: Some acoustic luthiers prefer the sound of an unfinished (no varnish) instrument and say the finish is only there for looks and protection but dulls the sound. What say you? 😁✌🖖
I have 1954 ernst heinrich roth violin with a flaking varnish. How do I approach restoring that varnish. I have made three violins in the past and would like to do the work myself. I really enjoy your channel especially when you restore instruments. Thanks
I got the 7/8 JTL for me and it has a sound that will cary well. Not in love at first but it was the best in the size. After practice I cot better so the violin sounds better too.
I posted a reply previously but for some reason it didn’t take, you can check his shop online he has a pretty decent range of instruments. I’ve purchased two different ones and I’m super happy with them they even got to me without any issues.
He needed to change the intensity of the arching to compensate for the strength of the wood, but he had several videos of instruments he made with non standard woods. (edit: missing a word)
How would a man go about acquiring one of your fiddles. Violin i think you call it. So i hot a fiddle about 2 weeks ago and had no clue what i was holding in my hand and only knew Anything at all from the kindness of Charlie Daniel's. I can make it talk but I'm not hearing what I want....yet. So i did a porch swing for a guitar for my little one and ended up with 2 "first act" and one "little mirmade". Having never picked up a guitar or violin i tuned in the guitart. By listening to a song then picked each string at the point of where they were singing and the next song i was picking each b4 and @ the same time it came up. Thats the guitar. I can actually do the guitar pretty good for picking up mayhaps 5times. I had a Stradivarius well it said that but also had the country of origin so they say well you kno. Thank you very much sir.
Years ago in the south I went to a fiddle shop and requested to try out a couple violins. I was sent to the coast where they sold them "violins". I got to a shop and they scoffed when I told them I visited a fiddle shop. Later I had a classically trained violin teacher tell me other than string changes, that many folks just left a little extra height on the bridge. People's opinions can be very strong.
@@christopherw4527 i just got one about a month ago i guess its a cheapo i have made a little progress but nit as much as with the guitar i got a week later. Having never touched either b4 or any training or tips of any kind i cant call it music that comes out but just not yet. Thank you so much and I agree...i am in east Tennessee and I see no reason for this behavior none @ all...but that doesn't change the fact.
Improving violins? Like in "improving Leonardo da Vinci's design"? Good luck. Great they are trying though. ... How much could the silver horsehead lira da bracchio by Leonardo be worth today, approximately?
I can't help but think of the survivorship bias when you bring up seeing these 100+ year old varnishes that have survived Yes some modern ones will flake off within a few years, but how many times did that happen with the natural varnishes? you're only ever going to see old ones that have withstood the test of time, perhaps purely by chance
Modern day electronics are atrocious indeed. They serve their purpose for a time (a very short time), and then after a few years their either obsolete, or unrepairable. Meanwhile many electronics from the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s you can still use, and repair (if you can read schematics, and solder) such as Stereos, Hi Fi systems, Musical amplifiers, effects, etc...etc......
It's for the same reason that all those beautiful old Roman or Baroque buildings are standing after centuries or even millennia, while all the modern crap around them is falling apart. It's an illusion. All the crappy Roman buildings failed long before the Roman empire fell and all the ugly Baroque buildings were torn down during Classicism. The stuff that is still standing gets a LOT of investment to keep it standing - if you've ever experienced the kind of work and money that goes into historic buildings you would be horrified at the expense. The same way for electronics: all the crappy electronics from the 30s-70s are barely recognizable rubble at some landfill. On a component level we've gotten a lot better and more reliable than we were in the early times of electronics: vacuum tubes are failure monsters - on average they last a few weeks or months, modern transistors of the same quality last many years or decades under similar conditions. The problem you perceive is the fact that 90% of all stuff made is crap that will barely last one week past the warranty. All the cheap stuff maxes out the components, which shortens their life span. All the small stuff (including everything from Apple) has heat problems. It's in the interest of the manufacturers to make stuff as cheap as possible and as visually pleasing as possible - robustness and long term reliability are not directly visible to the customers, so they can be compromised (to some extent). Those companies also don't have an interest in you repairing the device - it subtracts from their sales. If you want more reliable electronics - you need to invest about 10x as much into the devices you buy and you have to care and kick big companies like Apple to their shins in order to make them build more sturdy and open instead of cheap and "pretty". Are you willing to do that? (I'm not. I'd rather buy a new cheap soldering iron from Aliexpress after a few years and use it to build the reliable stuff myself.)
@@AskOlaftheViolinmaker Absolutely. Unfortunately I don't think anyone would buy a reliable iPod - 3x thicker, slightly larger, ugly screws instead of glued shells, clicky buttons instead of fancy touch dials. Quite a bit heavier, but as a result you could drop it from the 3rd floor window. Since we are talking Apple the price tag would probably stay the same (but Apple would earn less on it). Now, if we print a different company name and "rugged" on it - people might actually buy it, but never from Apple. 😋
