Violin: Varnish & Final Setup 

I was fortunate enough to come across, and be mesmerized by, this series today...all I can say is WOW!! What an incredible gift you have (and have shared with us)...the craftsmanship, patience, precision, and care you displayed were a joy to behold. You should be proud of that work...and I am very thankful for being able to see the effort involved in the creation of such a beautiful instrument. Hats off to you sir!!

Wow. Lots of hateful comments. Easy to sit back and judge. I, for one, appreciate the work and the video. It takes courage to put yourself out there. Varnishing is an art form unto itself. It maybe more difficult than the woodworking for many builders. Thanks for posting my friend.

Lovely stuff David. Thank you for sharing this. The use of traditional tools, attention to detail, and elegant craftsmanship are inspirational.

I will be honest, and I hope you don’t take offence, but the instrument looked far better before the colours were applied. Excellent workmanship and amazing crafting,The original wood varnished was beautiful. After the finish it looked like a cheap stentor student violin, I really don’t mean to cause offence by saying this.

Very very nice build, but the varnish ended up lookin kinda cheap. Doesn't reflect the precision and hours of work you've put into it

Very nice workmanship. The color was a shock! The beautiful maple figuring is now difficult to appreciate.

Why the paint? The wood is beautiful as it is.

that's a pink violin if I've ever seen one.

Hello, what products should I use while polishing, can you help me?

It looks beautiful, i liked when the clamp flew off

Nice series. I think you left one item out of your final setup, though, unless you've developed a brand-new violin design that doesn’t use a soundpost…

I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do a bright red violin. Just a by the way alcohol ink mixed with your varnish will really help with the transparency and depth. Your color will become less wash more depth and you will need fewer coats. Just something to experiment with

The first coat of pink color was enaugh, the second and subsequent should be dark braun with trace of red

Very nice work! Thank you for the videos posted and the website!

Guess I'm not the only one who prefers the non colour finish

Hello david. Thanks for posting;interesting technic;but i think(that s personal opinion)you should have put more yellow in the preparation of the colour in order to "smoothen" the brightness of the red that looks a bit to flashy i think;and also the varnished has been ovetsaturated by the colour preparation and ruins the transparency of the whole;in order to get more colour in the varnish at its very beginning its better to use an already coloured oil;properly cooked and oxygenated it looks reddish so you have less red colour to add to your varnish and also by cooking something like 4 hours the resins at 250 you will get a intense yellow varnish and by adding directly dragonblood resin in the cooked resins at the end of the cooking you will get italian cremonese colour. Once applied one a brown orange ground applied on the wood you will get a magnificent golden brown. Have a good time!

Why do you brush on the later clear layers instead of rubbing them on with your fingers like the first and pigment layers?

I noticed the back of the handle has no color on it. Is there some particular reason for that?

This is wonderfull varnishing. Thank you very much for sharing this kind of videos.

How may days (or hours) did you wait for each varnished color coat? 5 days at least? Also, when sanding off the previous coat before adding another one, I am afraid that I will destroy the color coat. Hence, how can I sand without making the varnish coat worse?

Very helpful :) great job!

Gorgeous.

The only think I don't like it's about the color. Rest it's ok.....

Good looking

Good job putting the violin together. It's Friday November 29th 9:06pm N.Y.C 17th Street Barnes and Nobles looking at this video trying to learn how to repair my violin. I give this video a thumbs up.

How do you polish the new violin? Between layers or at the end? And with what? TY in advance.

Thanks for sharing your video. Please advise what kind of vanish have you used.

If you want a more authentic looking red try dragon's blood resin. Hard to find sometimes, but it's historically used as a pigment for instruments. Great build by the way!

Awesome

Parabéns!!!!!!! Ficou ótimo.

What do you add to make the paint more liquid? [5:04]

Really need to take that varnish back down and do something different

Red paint ruined all of it

I think the color kinda ruined it but other than that amazing job

This was a good video, except you may have well, showed putting in the sound post. Because after all that tedious work, it won't sound good, if the sound post isn't good.

what a cheap looking color for such pretty wood :( good technique though.

Im sorry I left a comment at all. After reading all the other comments. Don't listen to me. It came out fine.

PINK FIDDLE ???? why ???? gee whiz , ya put all that great craftsmanship into something that looks like a kids toy ! are you color blind , try green next time , it'd be an improvement !

I don't know why this video has 37 haters. I think they tell it to cuz they don't know how repair a violin.

antonius stradivarius

Elsonidocomoes

shouldve just used red spraypaint...you ruined a beautiful violin...your bob ross paint? really? what were you thinkin

That looks like shit....

I wanted to make a "Red Violin" joke but you probably get a lot of that already. :)

Feo color.