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The
woods generally used in violin making are:
-
spruce for the belly, the bass bar, and
the sound post;
- maple for the back, the ribs, the neck
and the bridge;
- ebony for the fingerboard, the pegbox,
the nut and the saddle;
- rosewood for the pegs and the button.
Linings,
blocks and corners can be made out of pine, willow,
poplar or any other light wood. The trees are carefully selected
before being chopped down, and the violin maker, or the expert
woodcutter, can determine their sound qualities by tapping
the trunk with a hatchet. By following established precise criteria,
he can determine whether a pine tree, for instance, is apt to
produce a high-resonance wood. There are several parameters
that determine such quality with respect to the geographic location
of the tree (slope, wind, altitude, climate, soil).
Once
the tree has been cut down (usually in the month of January),
it is stored for many years (10 to 20!) in a dry, ventilated
place protected from the change of seasons. Old wood
is incontestably the best. Wood that has been stored for
too long, however, is no better than very young wood...
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