Darnton Violins Blog

I probably should have mentioned when I mentioned my photos of the Upper Peninsula in the 1970s a few posts ago that I have a whole set devoted to portraits of people in the violin business.

I have been writing a violin making book for a few years. Progress is slow, but I’m in no hurry. At this point I have a few easy chapters, not yet illustrated.

(Me, 1979 ) Before I was involved with violins, I was a photographer. My last full-time photo job was in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, on a very small newspaper in an isolated and underpopulated area. It was a great job where I got to wander around in a four-county region asking people I saw doing interesting things to let me take their picture…

In my quest for the perfect jeweler’s saw blade for sawing out f-holes, I once landed the world’s last supply of these antique blades, defunct blades from a closed hardware store.

There is a simple shop method for sharpening files that’s mentioned in more or less detail all over the web. It’s done by dipping the files in acid for an hour or more, which supposedly etches away metal, sharpening the edge. However

The violin is Chinese, about ten years old. The owner said it doesn’t sound horrible.

This is a Dominant brand aluminum-wound violin D string. The outside cover is two flat strips wound next to each other (they’re coming off the back, top, and you can see the pair grouped together still on the string). The horizontal scratches, running the length of the string, are from the final grinding and polishing of the string surface. Inside…

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that it was easy to shoot photos through my microscope by just jamming my cell phone camera up against the eyepiece, so I started looking for interesting things to shoot.