WAYS OF REMOVING THE UPPER TABLE AND THE NECK--CLEANSING THE
INTERIOR--PRESERVATION OF THE ORIGINAL LABEL--CLOSING OF CRACKS IN
UPPER TABLE.
I recollect many years back, when in company with a violinist of some
note, we were talking over various details in connection with the
reparation and regulation of violins of a high class, particularly
those of the great masters. The fact of so many fine instruments having
fractures of the same kind and in the same position was remarked as
being curious, why so numerous as to form a very large majority? Well,
said the professor, at one time cracks were really fashionable, and
an instrument well endowed with them was thought to emit its tone more
freely, especially if it had been somewhat stiff before. This might
account for some, but not so many coming from all parts, I observed,
from their similarity I am inclined to their being due to one principal
cause, that of carelessness on the part of repairers in former times
and some even of the present. It is through hurry or want of method
in removing the upper table, should it be necessary. A repairer once
confessed to me that he had sometimes caused these fractures in his
impetuousness while going through this preliminary; his excuse was one
frequently made for all sorts of bad work, clumsiness and want of
judgment, that people would not pay for proper time and care being
expended, and so when he cracked the front while taking it off, he glued
it up again.
As generally is the case, more than one method can be pursued for
removal of the upper table. A somewhat original one was recommended
to me once as being very successful and causing the table to part from
the rest beautifully without risk of fracture, and that was, firstly
to obtain some vessel holding boiling water and with a suitable pipe
attached for throwing a fine jet of steam against the glued parts
requiring separation. Not having seen this done, or tried it myself,
I am unable to speak for or against this process, but there appears
to be some risk of damaging the varnish in the vicinity while the steam
is forced against the small space for operating upon. I was assured
that this was an excellent mode of separation, there being no tearing
about or splintering of the wood. It might be a good method where there
is perceptibly much impasto of glue, and which, while almost readily
yielding to the penetrative power of steam, is a great nuisance under
ordinary circumstances. Another method would be that of getting some
lengths of soft cotton rag or other substance that would retain
moisture well when wetted; these could be laid all round, tucked
closely against the junction of the upper table and ribs and left for
a reasonable time or kept wetted in dry weather. This, if not quite
causing a disjunction, would facilitate the operation of the knife in
the usual way. I think, however, that any departure from the rule of
using the knife is very rare indeed, any other means necessarily taking
time and taxing the patience.
We will now return to the dealer and his assistant or repairer. The
matter in hand with them is business, and therefore a regular routine
is gone through when the instrument is worthy of first class repair,
and everything conducive to the best results in up-to-date regulation
has to be calculated and carried out in minute detail. Searching eyes
will go over all the fresh parts, looking for any possible inaccuracy,
any slip of the tool or ruggedness where a fine, even surface ought
to be. In order that all may be conveniently attended to, the first
proceeding will be that of sawing off the head and neck, this is done
rather close to the body of the instrument. Under present circumstances,
more care than usual with modern violins has to be exercised, as the
repairer knows that it was customary with the old Italian makers to
secure the neck to the upper block by one, two, or at times even three
nails. They were driven in from the interior before the final closing
up or fixing of the upper table. Sometimes a screw is found in the same
place instead of nails. These arrangements point to a want of
confidence in glue by these old masters, notwithstanding the evidence
we have of their using the finest quality only. In separating the neck
from the body, it will obviously be wise to act in a very cautious manner,
or the saw may come suddenly upon the nails or screw, and there will
be a grating of teeth, and perhaps upsetting of the temper of the
performer. It will therefore be a consideration for the repairer
whether the instrument has been previously opened, or is in that very
rare condition, as the maker left it. Economy of time and labour always
more or less being a desideratum, in the supposed instance before us,
that of an untouched old master, our repairer having had experience
with many Italian violins of different degrees of merit, first proceeds
by removing the old fingerboard. This being short and less massive than
the modern kind, presents but little difficulty. The cushion filled
with sawdust or sand, is now called into requisition. Placing the
violin on its back and tilting it up so that the button and the back
of the scroll press equally on the yielding surface, it is held in
position with some degree of firmness, the fingers of the right hand
being placed underneath the wide end of the fingerboard, a sudden pull
upward causes the fingerboard in most instances to part with a snap.
Should it refuse to do so, other means must be resorted to. The
fingerboard may be one of the old inlaid kind, or veneered pine, and
worth keeping as a curiosity, in which case the saw must be applied
to any part of the neck for removing wood that will not be required
again, piece-meal, until the board is free, when it can be further
cleared at leisure.
Our repairer, not finding in the fingerboard under his hands any
particular merit, it being besides worn into ruts near the nut by
performers of the early schools, who used but little more than the first
position, moreover, coming away with ease, proceeds to the sawing
process. The presence of nails or screw he believes to be fairly certain,
therefore instead of sawing down close and even as possible with the
ribs, the saw line is made at an angle downward and outward toward the
head, or say at an angle of some forty-five degrees, beginning at about
a quarter of an inch away from the borders of the upper table. The cut
thus made would be free from any nail or screw, unless of extraordinary
dimensions. (Diag. 35.)
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 35.]
In the case of a modern violin, the saw cut could be made close to the
border and downward to within a short distance of the button, where
another cut at right angles and parallel to the surface of it will free
the neck completely. The violin, now as before, is placed front
downwards on the cushion or pad, some repairers would hold it on their
knees, but only in the absence of either means. In the present instance,
being a prize and sure to eventually pay for any amount of trouble and
skill expended, the violin is treated in a manner that long experience
and judgment dictate as safest. Opening the instrument has been agreed
to as being absolutely necessary, the old short bar would certainly
prove inadequate to withstand the pressure from above if the violin
and its fittings were to be subjected to modern regulation under
present conditions. Everything being ready, the operator with steady
hands inserts the knife with a sudden push at the under part of the
edging--from the position of the violin the knife would now be above
it--at the lower quarter of the instrument, this having the largest
curve and therefore being weakest in resistance to the plunge of the
knife. As the thin bladed knife is worked along, there is a tendency
to stick occasionally. This is counteracted by running along, or
slightly wiping the surface of the knife, a cotton rag, with the
smallest touch of oil upon it; this will enable the knife to go quite
smoothly. Great care is exercised that the knife is held on an exact
level with the plane of the pine table, or there will be great risk
of running the knife into the pine instead of lifting it away from the
joint. Evidence of bad judgment in this respect is not infrequently
to be met with on otherwise well repaired instruments. A series of sharp
cracking sounds come forth as the knife works its way in. It is worked
along in either direction until near the corner block or near the nut.
At this part, the violin being in the original state as fresh from the
hand of its maker at Cremona, the treatment will be slightly different
to what it would be after modern regulation.
The knife will come to a full stop here, and be taken out for proceeding
with the release of the table on the opposite side. It will be as a
matter of course, necessary to place the violin the other end foremost,
the larger end being furthest from the operator; the knife, as before,
being inserted at the large curve in the same manner and for the same
reason, finally stopping as before at each end. The principal reason
for stopping at the end is that with most of the old Italian violins
there is a short wooden pin, probably used for temporarily securing
the table in position before the final glueing down. These wooden pins
of hard or tough consistency being driven in firmly, offer considerable
resistance to the passage of the knife if the latter is forced through.
Most of the violins having these pins originally, give evidence of the
exertions of the repairer to press the knife through these obstacles
at the risk, ofttimes with certainty, of breaking up or smashing the
fibres of the surrounding portion of the pine. Of a dozen old Italians,
perhaps on an average ten will be found with this part broken, jagged,
or having a portion of fresh wood inserted where ruffianly treatment
has bruised the threads of the pine past remedy. Our professional
repairers, being men of experience, further, both having a natural
disposition and qualification for their calling, know better than to
use much violence in this part of their work, so taking the knife away,
the operator cleanses it from all glue or resinous particles, and when
perfectly dry, passes the slightly oiled rag again over both surfaces.
The knife being inserted again and again, is pressed round about the
pin and thrust forward so that the increasing thickness of the blade
may act as a long wedge, this gradually lifts the table away, leaving
the pin standing.
The lower end will require the same treatment for easing the upper table
round the pin. In original condition most of the old Italian violins
would not give further trouble, but some later or middle period ones,
instead of the small piece of ebony or other hard substance slightly
inserted or laid half way through the table, have an ebony nut going
quite through and down in a triangular form nearly to the tailpin. In
these instances a small knife held vertically and pressed along between
the parts of the ebony touching the pine will enable the table to come
away gradually in the manner indicated. We now may suppose ourselves
again in the presence of the repairers, operator and master; the upper
table has been successfully and cleanly released from the blocks and
along the upper edging of the ribs, very few splinters here and there
are left, giving double evidence of neat glueing on the part of the
maker and systematic care on that of the modern repairer.
Being now quite free and gently lifted off, the table is turned about
for a moment and attention is directed to the interior. The two men
look at all the parts with very different eyes. One with eager
expectancy, critical eye and much experience, sees at a glance much
that intensely interests him, confirms certain views of the old methods
of working, whether the wood was white and new when the violin was
constructed, how a little of the precious material enveloping the whole
structure had dropped through the sound holes during the process of
varnishing; watches the form of the drops whether they indicate a thin
or a thick solution of the resinous particles, whether these have
cracked or blistered in the Milanese or Venetian manner, whether they
show signs of having set at once or remained soft and running for a
time; the corner and end blocks, their material, and whether the same
as those linings let into the middle ones and their being finished off
before or after the placing in position. The joint of the back too,
and if there remained any evidence of system in working different to
what we moderns would do? These and other queries passed rapidly
through the mind of the dealer and connoisseur, more of the latter than
the former, and that is why he was not more successful by many degrees
than any others of the fraternity. To be a dealer in the strictly
business sense of the term, a number of valuable violins must to him
be no more than potatoes in a basket to a greengrocer, _i.e._, what
they appear worth.
His assistant--a good accurate mechanic in almost all respects, sees
in this unearthed "old master," "gem of antiquity," or _chef d'oeuvre_
of Italian art, nothing but the interior of a dirty brown box with a
rolling ball of fluff resting in one of the corners.
There are perhaps few things more disappointing than the interior of
a violin when opened for the purpose of repairing. Be it a matchless
gem of Cremona's art or an old and common Tyrolese worth but a few
shillings, the difference to an ordinary observer is so slight as to
be uninteresting, indeed to connoisseurs of experience there is not
the variation sufficient to excite curiosity to the extent of opening
the instrument on that ground solely. The raw and unvarnished wood,
with the parts between the threads swollen from damp, begrimed and
repeatedly washed by repairers, presents anything but a pleasing
spectacle even when the interior of a fine "Strad" or Joseph is laid
bare. Many years ago a friend owning a fine Cremonese viola asked me
to open it and find out the cause of some buzzing or rattling within
that had not been evident till that time. After an examination, finding
that opening it would be absolutely necessary, I asked him whether he
would like to see the interior of what he had paid so much for; it might
not prove an enjoyable sight from the roughness and dirt of ages in
combination with clumsily executed repairs while in unskilful hands;
being unaccustomed to such sights he wisely restrained his curiosity
and waited till all was placed right again.
But to our dealer and workman again; the former, taking up the two
portions alternately, at last makes the remark, "Clean work, James,
inside as well as out, good tool work, they had some steel in those
days, plenty of glass-papering here apparently, unlike some others
made at the same period, time seems to have been no object. Possibly
the maker was well paid for his work, if not he ought to have been."
To these observations the workman only gives a sniff in reply. He thinks
that all this can be quite equalled at the present day, if a fellow
is really well paid; but this is reckoning with only a part of the
subject. A further exclamation of admiration comes from his
chief--"Think, James, what a wonderful draughtsman this old Italian
was; mind you, this is not a copy, traced from something else as we
should do now-a-days, but a first idea, an original design; it is in
some respects a departure from the man's best known patterns, good as
them, however, although differing; look at the way those lines run from
point to point, what ease! the tenderness with which the sound holes
are drawn, the lightness and freedom! that man was a born artist if
ever there was one!" Another sniff from James, who doesn't believe in
born anything, but that good work comes with good tools and a reasonable
prospect ahead of good remuneration for extra trouble. "Don't see, sir,
why we can't put a bit of purfling round as clean as that! some of those
French copies are as cleanly purfled as any part of this!" He is
released from the necessity of further illustration by his chief
interposing: "Quite true, James, and if these mechanical copyists had
put as much energy into efforts at truly original and artistic designs
as they have in copying that which seems to have been laid down for
their guidance, they would have advanced very many steps further than
they have done in the essentials of the art--in the highest sense of
the term--of making violins. But we must get to work, there are lots
of repairs of all sorts for us to get through the next fortnight, and
as there is comparatively little anxious work about this job we will
get it out of hand!"
The violin is now subjected to another and final inspection before the
active treatment is commenced. "How about that wormhole, James, that
we were worrying over before the separation of the upper table?"
"That's just what I've been looking at, sir, and as it doesn't go more
than a quarter of an inch into the wood--I've tried it with this bit
of wire--the maker must have cut this bit of pine from a worm-eaten
log, perhaps because it was old and likely to give a good tone!" "There
you're wrong, James!" the chief interposes--he is rather inclined to
snub his assistant when that essentially practical man gives any
indication of a flight of fancy--"the 'worm' is no sign of age, I have
known it to affect wood that has been cut but a year before its discovery,
and do you think those old Italians were such fools as to make fiddles
that would be only fit to be heard when tried by their descendants two
hundred years after they died?" James collapses, and getting a basin
with some warm water, a cloth and a piece of sponge, proceeds to smear
the latter up and down and round the sides of the instrument. The sponge
and water soon show signs of the work in hand. "Very dirty, sir, hasn't
been washed for a hundred years, I should think! There's a ticket, too,
but I can't make out much of it. I'll wash it over a bit." He then begins
to try the deciphering, taking one letter at a time. "There's a large
H at one part, the next is A or O and then U or N, and next to it there's
R or D; its either London or perhaps its one of those we came across
the other day, Laurentius something." "It's neither one nor the other,"
his chief almost roars, while rapidly striding across the room to his
assistant, who hastily hands over the portion of the violin, glad to
leave the regions of speculation. "There's nothing about that fiddle
having any connection with any place but Cremona," and the chief bumps
down into a chair to further study the mysterious ticket. "You have
not improved that ticket by washing it, the date has gone and the
greater part of the print; you should never wash a ticket, that is how
the very large majority of even well preserved ones have lost the date
or part of it written with ink in which gum has been one of the
ingredients and which is easily dissolved, the best way after dusting
it is to get some bread and rub gently over the surface, and if that
does not bring out the letters or figures you may mostly consider them
past recovery."
James does not think much of this attempt at instilling wise maxims
into his prosaic constitution, and replies "I don't think you could
have seen more letters before I washed the ticket than after, sir, the
plainest were what I read out, which looked more like London than
anything else. There was another word underneath which I think was alum,
that's English, isn't it?" This is intended as a kind of parting shot
in a contest during which he has been slightly uncomfortable. The chief
answers rather snappishly, "No! that's Latin. I must tell you that at
the time so many of the finest fiddles were made the use of Latin was
very fashionable, being used much on monumental decorations,
signatures to works of art generally, down to the prescriptions of
doctors, which we have not got rid of yet; that is the former, the latter
are always with us and will be. But stop! why, after all, this is not
the original ticket, I think it is one pasted over another! hand me
that camel hair brush and the water." This being done, the wetted brush
is repeatedly passed over the ticket so as to keep it moist till the
water has soaked through and dissolved sufficiently the glue or gum
that held it close. After a while, the corner is gently lifted up with
the aid of a pointed knife, the end caught hold of and pulled; by degrees
the whole of the upper ticket is lifted off, leaving to the pleased
eyes of the chief the original ticket in all the better preservation
for being covered up. "Yes, there it is! I knew I was right, a fine
Nicolas Amati! I believe that top one is the remains of a Laurentius
Guadagnini Alumnus Stradivarius, which some wiseacre thought a more
appropriate title."
The Guadagnini ticket is laid by till dry and then placed in a small
drawer in which are a number of others of various makers and
nationalities; it may emerge from its obscurity some day and become
of use so far as the condition or its legibility will allow.
The upper table is taken in hand again by the chief, turned over
repeatedly and both sides of the border carefully examined for the
presence of any cracks, long or short, old or new, the latter being
scarcely expected, as the assistant is of a sufficiently cautious
disposition naturally and as yet has not been debited with any charge
of injury to his work from over haste or carelessness. "There is a very
small crack at the lower right side about one inch from the centre,
I think, but let us be certain, have you got your glue in good order?"
"Quite," is the reply, "fresh and strong too, sir." "Just see if that
mark is really a crack or not." The assistant takes the portion in hand,
holds it to the light, examines it from different angles of vision,
and finally resolves to test it in the following way; holding the plate
of pine carefully with the left hand, with the right holding a "camel
hair" dipped in clear water, he passes it over the possible crack, then
taking the plate again in both hands, with the thumbs placed on each
side of the mark, the fingers being underneath, it is very gently bent
backward and forward, and the wetted part closely watched. Presently,
the water is observed to gradually disappear, having worked its way
into the crack. "It is one, sir, but quite clean as if newly done."
By this time, the slight bending, or what is really the case, the
opening and shutting of the crack by the movement, causes some minute
white bubbles to appear along the course, these give an indication of
the extent of the fracture, which is something over an inch in length.
"I think it is the result of the contraction of the wood from being
kept in such a dry place, it is not a repairer's crack, which would
have extended further into the centre," so the chief observes, "get
the hand vice ready with the paper, and I will hold the parts together."
At this time, the fresh warm glue is being applied in a similar way
to that of the clear water, the latter enables the glue to work in or
follow the course of the moisture, and similar, but whiter, small
bubbles are seen along the direction of the crack under the
manipulation as before described. The small hand-vice, having several
layers of stout white paper or card inserted at the opening or between
the teeth, is slackened to receive the part of the border to be held
together. The chief, holding the plate with the fractured part furthest
from him, and consequently in front of his assistant, it is held in
position firmly by both hands. "One moment, James!" he exclaims, "this
border has had little or no wear, and the surface is so fresh, that
if we use card or paper alone we shall leave a mark of the pressure,
hand over those thin pieces of cork and let us put them between the
paper and the metal of the vice, there, that will be better for standing
the pressure, more elastic you see." The vice under the fresh
conditions is now applied, the parts of the table or plate are brought
together accurately and held tightly in position by the fingers, the
glue exuding from the crack where it can be seen just beyond the reach
of the paper, the screw is turned tightly by the assistant, and with
the remark, "that will do," the whole is left to him for placing aside
while drying.