Violin Varnish and How to Make It/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
Varnish, its Uses and Effects.
VARNISH, as applied to musical instruments, is primarily intended to be a means of preservation.
If one of those beautiful masterpieces of the early Italian period could have reached us to-day without having been varnished, it would be in such a lamentable condition of decay as to render it completely unfit for use.
All the magnificent workmanship and design would have been obliterated by the accumulated dirt of many years, and it would be valueless either as a musical instrument or as an object of art.
Therefore, the first care of those making a varnish must be to make certain of its ability to act as a preservative. There are two kinds of varnish in general use, one being made from oil and the other from spirit.
The only varnish that will effect the purpose of preservation is one that has oil as its basis.
All varnishes made from spirit leave on the wood a deposit of rosins of varying degrees of hardness.
These deposits, if soft, are soon worn away by the least friction and even if left untouched will, in time, disappear by the process of natural disintegration, and will leave the instrument itself bare and disfigured. Our attention must then be especially confined to oil varnishes.
In this varnish the opposite effect is obtained, the gums and rosins are dissolved in the oil and the whole forms a siccative substance which, to a considerable extent, assimilates to the superficial part of the instrument, and the oil gradually drying leaves the rest amalgamated with the wood which it covers, and yet at the same time forms a part of.
Although to act as a preservative is the chief function of varnish there are several other properties it must possess if it is to be perfect.
Amongst these are elasticity, transparency, and the ability to improve the tone of the instrument.
Elasticity is an important essential which must be carefully considered.
A good varnish must, in spite of its adhesive character, allow the wood to vibrate freely and should itself vibrate as an integral part of the instrument, and it should not in any way affect the tone possessed by the violin previous to its having been varnished.
It will be seen that if the varnish does not lend itself readily to these conditions and is not elastic but remains hard, it will of necessity tighten upon and compress the instrument, thus rendering the proper production of the sound difficult.
Again, if the varnish does not expand and contract in accordance with the expansion and contraction of the violin, it will crack and so completely spoil the work whose beauty it should enhance.
Transparency, though not quite so important as elasticity, is yet another very necessary quality. An opaque varnish as can be well imagined would be unsightly and absurd.
If varnish were not transparent, all artistic workmanship would be unnecessary and useless as it could not be seen, and all the beauties in the grain of the wood would be effectually disguised.
A good varnish has a distinct effect in the improvement of the tone of a violin.
That mellowness and richness which is always associated with violins of very old manufacture largely depends on the excellence of its varnish.
This brings us back to the knowledge possessed by the old makers, which enabled them to produce such wonderful varnish and how it came to be lost.
Much controversy and discussion has been centred on this subject, which has many curious and interesting features.
It was probably not a secret at one time, but each maker in his endeavour to surpass his rival tried to improve upon what we recognise now to have been as near perfection as possible, so that instead of attaining the ideal they gradually fell away from their high standard until the original process has been buried in the innumerable and vain attempts to supersede the first and most successful efforts.
Others again have from a purely mercenary motive used such materials in the composition of their varnish that were not of the best quality, and which, in the course of time, have deteriorated to such an extent that at the present time varnishes are much below the standard set by the examples left us by the great masters of other days.