I’m so close I can taste it!  Well, smell it is more likely.  Varnishing a violin is a very pleasant process to the nose.  The oils used to help it flow as it is applied and all the other natural materials fill a room with a distinct but pleasing scent that is very different from the everyday paint.  Varnishing over the past few weeks has been a little nerve racking because many things can go wrong and a few did, but more on that later.  The materials used to make varnish vary from maker to maker.  As I described under the “Techniques” section of this site there are two types of varnish, oil and spirit.  Oil tends to dry slower while spirit varnishes dry so rapidly they take a careful eye and hand to apply.  Mr. Vartanian uses sprit varnish and let me use some of his for my violin.

Before I get too ahead of myself with colors let me describe what has to happen before this creative process takes place.  To varnish everything evenly the fingerboard is taken off to give full access to the top plate.  Then the violin has to be “washed.”  Washing involves water and a stiff brush to take off any excess glue and some small dents can be raised or swelled up to even everything out.  Of course if I was antiquing the instrument (purposely making it look old) I would keep those dents for character but I would like this to look new because even old instruments were new at some point.  Also to prepare the wood it is nice to give it a final scraping.  Scraping brings the grain lines forward and helps deepen the look of the instrument.  Once all this is complete, the instrument is sealed or filled.  The sealant or ground can vary from thin spirit varnish to egg whites and all sorts of natural materials in between.  The ground seeps into the wood so that when the varnish is applied it doesn’t penetrate changing the acoustic properties or making it look blotchy.  The sealant used on rare old instruments is one of those “lost secrets” from the great makers of the past.  Mr. Vartanian let me in on his secret, which is a natural substance that surprised me.  Passing this sort of information down orally is important to the trade and since I can’t fully give out everything Mr. Vartanian has shared with me I will have to keep this to myself for now.  What I did want to point out was how there is no real change of color when applying the ground.   Also in the following pictures you can see the drying stand, a very handy place to put the violin when varnishing so it can do its thing.   Just another purpose for something that is taken for granted, in this case the hole for the end button.

I’m sorry for the tease about “trade secrets” but many makers use all sorts of materials that are “unknown.”  Even Henry Strobel, whose violinmaking book has been a constant reference all the way through the process, mentions that debating the good or bad qualities of various grounds and varnish is for someone else to discuss, not a subject for a first instrument.  Which leads me to just one more secret that I found even more fascinating than the ground.  Before the first coat of color is added Mr. Vartanian had me rub something over the entire instrument that is basically another natural substance, in this case oil, making all the flame and grain pop out even more.  Without varnish on everything was very deep looking.  While there isn’t an acoustic property to this material, the aesthetic affect is wonderful.  It is a secret Mr. Vartanian said he learned it from Simone F. Sacconi, an amazing copyist and author of a rather famous violin book The Secrets of Stradivari.  So with the natural oil on the instrument and the ground sealing the top it was time for the first coat of color.

There are generally three parts that go into making a spirit varnish.  Once “cooked” it creates clear varnish and goes on the instrument rather yellow.  If you or someone else has every scratched an instrument, instead of seeing bare white wood there is a tint to it (in most cases that is).  This is the first coat of varnish. Basically, it is a ground color and can also have a great affect on the overall color tone.  Because this first coat is very important to the overall evenness of the varnish and can cause some difficulty, Mr. Vartanian was very adamant about putting it on himself and showing me things to watch out for with the brush.

So the best I could do was point to an Amati viola picture in the shop and say it could be something like that.  So out came a few colors he had.  A brown he had was very dark when we tested it on a scrap piece of maple.  He then showed me a lighter more yellow/orange color and as he saw that I was disappointed with the test, so he mixed some of them together. There wasn’t any measuring either; he was just a cook in the kitchen adding a little bit of spice because that’s what feels right.  The sample outcome was great.  It was yellow golden but with a brown tint.  I didn’t think it was too dark or too light and that made it rather appealing to me and I hope the readers who wanted a golden-brown are satisfied with the final product.  It’s interesting to note the color of the varnish in a jar compared to on the instrument.  It is very dark by itself but goes on very light only getting darker with each coat. Since I had watched the ground color being applied I wanted to put on the first coat of varnish.  To be safe, both Mr. Vartanian and Mr. Belote were looking over my shoulder the whole time and coaching me through.  The brush has to start at just the right slow speed, then get faster and then turn over the complete nice long strokes.  The brush also has to have the right amount of varnish on it to be successful.  Learning out the hard way, I didn’t have enough varnish on at times and because what goes on starts to dry so quickly, going back over it, the brush will pick up the varnish.  You may notice in this before and after shot how the upper bout has inch and a half wide lines.  Lets just say that while they were looking over my shoulder I also heard a lot of yelling.
(The good news is that in the end all this can be fixed).

The top is much more difficult to varnish than the rest of the instrument.  First of all, there are the f-holes where varnish tends to sit and build up.  Then even with a sealant the wood’s whiter color may absorb more than the rest and get too dark too quick.  Finally, the direction the varnish is applied is important.  The back is easy because the brush goes from side to side with the flame.  The ribs are basically the size of a brush and the scroll, while tricky, doesn’t have much surface area and can be a little thicker if needed.  The top uses down and upward strokes which need to be very long and flowing.  About three quarters of the way down the brush is flipped over to get the varnish on the other side but that can cause a horizontal line.  The brush is so sticky that it’s a constant worry of either building up too much or going back over and taking away varnish.  There is a step to help with all that but here are the rest of the first coat pictures.

After the second coat was dry I learned another important and creative step to the varnishing process.  Similar to glass, varnish is then evened out and smoothed by taking down high spots and rough spots with sandpaper.  The sandpaper is wet with water as it is moved over the instrument to make it easier to glide and this crystallizes the varnish leaving a white abrasive.  Sanding the violin takes hours.  I can’t even imagine what a cello would be like.  There is an art to sanding the varnish as well.  Some areas can be made lighter than others, especially important when antiquing, and it can correct the mistakes as you go.  Of course, by the last coat you don’t want to have any mistakes but by fixing them after the coat of varnish I can end up with a rather even look.  Varnish also is very shinny and sanding dulls the shine making it look much more natural.  Learning how to look for dark spots was a trick too.  The flame can be kind of confusing but certain angles and directions of holding the instrument give away where the varnish overlapped and dried darker than the rest.  Evening it out after every coat is what makes a “one color” violin.

To hold the violin when varnishing is rather tricky.  Just like with the drying stand, a tapered stick, or in my case an old brush handle is a handy tool to grab onto when varnishing.  Flipping the violin to get all the angles of the bouts and leaning it against a bench or leg becomes a necessity when holding it for an entire coat.  As a side note, here is another overlooked tool that is critical in the varnishing process.

One thing I didn’t explain is to watch out for stray dust or brush hairs that fall out when varnishing.  The more expensive the brush, the better it is about keeping all the hairs in it but a few times when I was adding coats I would find something that needed to be picked out right away.  If left in and sanded over, bare spots would appear on either side of the hair creating an unpleasant spot.  I let either Mr. Vartanian or Mr. Belote carefully pull these out with the tip of a knife when they occurred just to be safe.

As I varnished, let it dry, sanded, and varnished again, I got better with each coat.  I was finally able to add a coat without being watched by the fourth one and then I showed Mr. Vartanian each time what I did to make sure everything was even and would dry appropriately.  You can see from the below pictures how each coat gets darker, then lightens up after sanding.  Four more coats are pictured, taking days to dry and even entire days to sand appropriately.  Adding the last coat was a toss up in my mind too.  It already looked good but would another coat make it to dark.  Luckily, I don’t think it did and I hope you agree.

Third Coat:

Third Coat After Sanding:

Fourth Coat (see how the lines are going away on the top!):

Fifth Coat After Sanding (Lighter in color but deeper looking):

Sixth Coat of Varnish (Brown and gold and can you see a little red/orange too?):

Two more steps follow, the first of which was magical.  By taking the same alcohol that was used to strip the varnish on the edge, it can lightly be applied to blend the color.  Pure alcohol melts and spreads the varnish around letting it dry smooth and full.  Since this was something that can easily reverse the whole varnishing process I was happy to watch and observe Mr. Vartanian blend the varnish.  Each stroke of the cloth brought forward a different look revealing a gorgeous glow that was underneath the top layer.

Finally, the last step was similar to the sanding.  Of course, I’ve been letting the violin dry quite a bit by this point so it was time to polish.  If you’ve ever seen someone buff out scratches on a car, what I did was similar.  Using finer sandpaper, micromesh, and oil instead of water, the tiniest scratches are rubbed into the varnish and rubbed out and then polish and more polish and more polish is applied.  One could spend countless hours making the varnish look spectacular and I will say I spent a few workdays rubbing away.  Circular motions are very important and in the end, the varnish was like a layer of glass.  There is depth, it’s even, needs a little bit of touch up where near the f-holes, but from a distance is very pretty.  From here I let it dry a little more then set it up.  So now, instead of almost tasting or smelling my finished product, I can almost hear it!