This November the British magazine, the Strad, published an article on the summer program at the VSA/Oberlin College Violin Makers Workshop.  I’ve attended this workshop in the United States, for a number of years, working alongside approximately fifty of my good colleagues. The program runs for two weeks each summer.

This year violin maker Hugh Withycomb and I varnished the violin made by the group last year. The vanishes (high resin/low oil) we used were developed over the past decade together with my assistant Charline Dequincey. Hugh and I showed our method of varnishing and completed varnishing the violin in about ten days! (shown below, photo by violin maker David Van Zandt.)

Below is an excerpt from the Strad magazine about our varnish work.  The full magazine is available here and covers the various other projects from Oberlin this year –  including designing a new viola and copying the ‘Jackson’ 1714 Stradivari violin.

Below is a photo from the Strad magazine article.  My colleagues, Martina Hawe & Gudrun Kremeier and I  are comparing the ‘Jackson’ Stradivari violin from 1714 to an unvarnished copy by Jeff Phillips and Antoine Nedelec.  Together we three are looking rather critical of their work but it was a beautifully made violin.  I look forward to see it varnished and playing it next year!

Above photo credit: violin maker David Van Zandt.