Remember those wonderful glasses from the ’50s with the plastic browline and the metal under-rim? If not from your actual life, then from the movies? They’re the classic glasses of both the G-man (”government man,” FBI) and Malcolm X, and all kinds of other people from all walks of life. They were hugely popular in their day.

So whatever happened to them? Today it seems that when people are looking for retro-frames they go for the full plastic Buddy Holly type ones, with very few choosing the much classier browline.

It might even surprise you to learn that the company which invented this style, Shuron, is still very much alive and in business, and, blessedly, still producing these sorts of frames. I had a very good experience with them.

I bought a pair of Shuron Ronsir Zyl frames, black briar with the Aztec sides, from an online retailer. When I got them it was love at first sight. I even bought some clip on shades directly from Shuron. However, the Aztec sides caused irritation on my right temple.

I called Shuron up to order a different style side, the Relaxo Cable. The pleasant fellow on the phone suggested plastic sleeves for the wire around the ear. When they arrived I noticed there was no charge, though he had quoted a price around $50 for the order.

The irritation healed a bit while I was waiting for the order to arrive, and I bent the Aztecs into a shape more accommodating of my massive skull. So I will keep the Relaxos as spares. The sleeves for the wire have become a permanent part of the Aztec sides, definitely a plus for comfort.

Though Shuron doesn’t appear to sell online, call their 800 number and order by credit card. Their prices are good and so is their service.

But even if we discount Stradivari’s mystique, it is still interesting to speculate as to his method, and googling on the topic will lead one to many interesting articles and forums where makers and interested amateurs alike debate. One area which gets a lot of attention is that of the ground Stradivari used. The ground is the first substance applied to the bare wood in the process of finishing. It is followed by the varnish.

It is not my intention to conduct a review of web sources (I will include some links at the end for those who would like to read more), but I will mention one of the more interesting articles I came across from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s web site, titled Investigating the secrets of the Stradivarius. Therein they outline research they conducted on samples obtained from instruments of the period. One quote in particular caught my interest:

Barlow suggested tentatively, on the basis of a single EDX run, that Stradivari’s filler could have been a kind of volcanic ash. Although the presence of some ash cannot be ruled out, the transparency of the finish rather suggests that finely crushed mineral crystals, like quartz, calcite, feldspar and gypsum, were the main components of the filler powder in most instruments.

There have been other scientific examinations of the ground as well, identifying elements which would make volcanic ash seem reasonable, were it not for the issue of transparency. It did not appear as though Stradivari was giving his instruments an initial coating of mud. But let us not forget that volcanoes don’t only spew forth ash, they also may belch out molten silicon dioxide containing other elements as well, such as potassium, iron, and sodium. This then cools into volcanic glass, or obsidian. A chunk of obsidian appears dark or even black, but a thin slice is transparent.

I ventured to experiment with obsidian ground. In fact, I thought, why not go all the way and varnish a complete violin? Because that would be stupid, I told myself. I don’t know anything about varnishing violins. So I ordered some scraps of spruce from tonewood dealer Simeon Chambers to do my experimenting on. And I set to work powdering obsidian.

I’m not going to go into great detail on how to powder obsidian. I’m not entirely certain powdered glass is something people should be messing with. While not poison per se, one can’t help shake the feeling that it simply can’t be good for you. But it’s really no mystery. You can ground stuff very fine with a big, sturdy mortar and pestle. Then to separate the fine from the less fine, you need a very fine sieve or two. The final thing you need is time. It is very tedious work grinding and sifting, grinding and sifting. But google as I might, I couldn’t find anyone selling obsidian powder, so there was no other course but to make it myself. Don’t try this at home, kids, but if you do, wear some sort of respirator, especially at the finer stages. It might not be poison to eat, but you do not want to breathe this stuff. (Note, wet grinding helps at later stages.)

A big question remained, though, before undertaking the experiment. What medium carried the obsidian? I have no idea. I do know that, in olden times, violin makers used something called vernice bianca as a ground applied to the wood prior to varnishing, so I decided to use that as the medium for the obsidian powder.

Note: The following is taken directly from American Lutherie #10 in 1987 in an interview with Jack Batts. It is also in The Big Red Book Vol. 1 from Guild of American Luthiers.

25g of gum arabic,
1/2 teaspoon of honey,
1/4 teaspoon of rock candy,
about 100cc of water,
albumen from one egg white.

“Crush the rock candy. Warm the water but do not boil. Slowly add the gum arabic, stirring constantly until dissolved. Add honey and rock candy. Strain the mixture through a fine cloth (handkerchief or sheeting) and let cool. While the mixture is cooling, whip an egg white into a meringue and turn the bowl on edge. Allow the mixture to settle out and remove the liquid that separates. This is the albumin. Add the albumin to the cooled mixture and stir well. Use this Vernice Bianca immediately and discard the rest. Sacconi advocated that after potassium silicate had been put on very sparingly, you should cover it completely with the vernice bianca before varnishing.”

Posted by Chuck Hutchison on woodworkerszone.com’s lutherie forum

May 31st, first day, first attempt.

I modified the recipe somewhat. Instead of honey and rock candy I would use a teaspoon of granulated maple sugar. And I would add two teaspoons of powdered obsidian, as well as a tablespoon of kamala, a yellow dye.

First problem was how to measure the gum arabic. I ordered this from Luscombe Violins, along with the kamala, some sandalwood, and catechu. It came in a hundred gram bag. I don’t have scales. I suppose I could have estimated a quarter bag (25g), but in the interests of precision, I measured it out. It was eight tablespoons. So I would need two.

I put the teaspoon of maple sugar into the hot water before adding the gum arabic, but I don’t think that made any difference. I put the gum arabic in a little at a time. It didn’t mix easily at first, forming sort of rubbery clumps. It got easier as the liquid became more of a gum arabic solution. Then I added the tablespoon of kamala. It didn’t mix at first, but eventually appeared to.

I tried filtering this through four layers of cheese cloth, but . . . well, in my defense, I’ve never filtered anything through cheese cloth. Nothing appeared to be happening, so I gather up the top edges and tried to sort of squeeze it. Unfiltered vernice bianca squirted up out of the cheese cloth and spilled in with the filtered, so that operation would have to be tried again. Did it twice more with double layers, and once for good luck with a triple layer.

I next added two teaspoons of powdered obsidian and stirred it in. I suspected this would want to settle out, and sure enough that would be the case, requiring regular mixing to keep it suspended. I used a very fine scientific sieve, but perhaps I could use one finer still.

Earlier I had whipped up some egg white. Having sat for awhile, the albumin had settled out just as the instructions said. Added that.

Here is an image of the board prior to application of the vernice bianca.

I applied the vernice bianca with fingers and thumbs, pressing it into the wood (from a comment on the maestronet forum: “Oh yes, epithelia/skin flakes are also found in Strad’s ground indicating it was applied using the bare hand rather than a brush”). Unfortunately, particulate kamala started to emerge as I rubbed it in. It hadn’t really dissolved in any meaningful way, it was just pretending.

I had experimented earlier with mixing kamala and linseed oil, or attempting to, since it didn’t really mix. Pushing it around on paper did result in a yellow stain, and likewise, while particulate was coming out, the board was also turning yellow.

The pot contains my home made vernice. Where the stain is browny is where there are particles still of kamala. For the most part they come out and can be scraped off, but the whole thing is messy and pretty much impossible to get an even finish.

I boiled up a tablespoon full of kamala in a little more than 100 ml of water, then put it through a coffee filter. Result? Dark yellow water. Just for safety’s sake I put it through a coffee filter again. Very little difference. After a couple of hours in the fridge, a very small amount of sediment had gathered. I will try again another day using the yellow kamala water.

June 18th

Another day, another piece of spruce.

Today I made the vernice bianca as before, but this time using the kamala water, and adding the sugar after the accacia (or gum arabic, same thing). I also got another sieve for the powdered obsidian, now down to a particle size of no greater than 63 micrometers (that’s 0.063 mm). It still settles and the obsidian enriched vernice bianca requires perpetual stirring up.

The kamala water can be regarded as a success if the primary objective was an even coating. One could wish, however, that the yellow was more intense.

Here is an image of 3 spruce boards. The one on the left is untreated, the one on the right is the first attempt, and the one in the middle is this most recent attempt.

In both attempts it may be noted that the obsidian is invisible. It’s there, certainly, but you wouldn’t know it. I think I’ll add another two teaspoons of obsidian to my vernice bianca and see if that makes a difference.

Here’s a picture of the powdered obsidian.

It looks just like a grey powder. It’s “true” colour is only betrayed when added to the vernice bianca. The more obsidian powder, the more the colour moves from yellow towards green.

And here are three boards treated with vernice bianca with different amounts of obsidian powder.

The first is from our 2nd trial, with a vernice bianca that has two teaspoons of powered obsidian added to the recipe. The middle one has four. The final one is an attempt with six. It looks like four is about optimum. By the time we get to six, we run into the same problem I had with the kamala, namely it came out of solution as I rubbed, a kind of grey mud, and that made it difficult to get an even finish.

For the purposes of our original objective of experimenting with the ground, we are done. The clarity of the obsidian, if not over-saturated, allows for volcanic minerals to be present in the ground without causing the surface to be muddy. However, in the interest of thoroughness, we will now add a varnish.

June 19th

We’re going to do the simplest possible coloured spirit varnish, just Canada balsam and isopropyl alcohol with a bit of kamala in an attempt to get it to be more yellow. We’re deviating from the Cremonese pattern here, since it’s highly unlikely they used Canada balsam, and probably used oil varnishes rather than spirit. But in the interests of simplicity and patriotism (nothing can ever be too Canadian), this is the approach I’ll take.

I mixed five ml of Canada balsam with 10 ml of isopropyl alcohol, then added a teaspoonful of kamala. That’s probably too much, it didn’t all mix in. Tested on some white paper and got a very promising shade of yellow, though with the particulate, of course.

Forced it through a coffee filter. I think it was a little too thick to go on its own. Perhaps I should try three parts alcohol to one Canada balsam. Pressing 15 ml of liquid through a coffee filter is a bit of a sticky mess, but it’s doable. A larger amount would be awkward.

Here is a picture of the result, next to a piece of unfinished spruce.

Beautiful. Clearly it’s an incredible waste of time trying to colour the vernice bianca, when right off the bat, with a single coat, one can get such a nice yellow in the varnish.

June 20th

Clear coat, five ml Canada Balsam + 10 ml isopropyl alcohol

June 21st

Next coat red. Mixed five ml Canada Balsam, with 15 ml isopropyl alcohol, plus a teaspoonful of powdered sandalwood. The thinner mixture did indeed strain more easily, but the resulting wash was very thin and with minimal colour. There’s no picture because the difference is so subtle that I don’t think the camera would pick it up.

I noticed, wiping the brush on paper, that while the liquid in the brush initially was a very washed out pink, after brushing it was a very washed out orange, suggesting it had gone through the clear layer to the yellow. Part of the purpose of the clear layer was to prevent just that.

Mixed up another batch with 10 ml Canada Balsam, 15 ml isopropyl alcohol, and two teaspoons full of powdered sandalwood. I’ll leave this overnight and test before straining to get an impression of the intensity of the colour. If it’s still wimpy I’ll try cooking it a bit, though would rather not, as this mixture contains something of the design of napalm — sticky thing mixed with highly flammable thing.

June 22nd

Clear coat. Sandalwood varnish is a bit darker, but not much.

June 23rd

Tried cooking the sandalwood varnish a bit. Even over very low heat the alcohol boiled off fairly quickly. Added back five ml and tried to squeeze it through the coffee filter, but it was really too thick, just got a a couple of ml. Soaked the filter in another five ml, kind of like a tea bag, mushing it about a bit, and added that. The effect is subtle but sufficiently noticeable to warrant a picture.

Perhaps three coats of this would make a significant difference, but I’m aiming for more of a brown anyway, so here we will leave off messing with sandalwood. Cooking doesn’t appear to make make much of a difference. I may try soaking some in alcohol for a couple of weeks and see if the extended soak makes a difference.

June 24th

Mixed together five ml Canada balsam, 10 ml isopropyl alcohol, and a teaspoon of catechu, hoping for a nice brown. Sadly, an initial test on paper was so washed out I’m not bothering today. I’ll let it soak overnight before straining and hopefully get at least a little browner. I’ve also put three teaspoons of sandalwood in a small container with 25 ml of isopropyl alcohol, as well as three teaspoons of catechu in another container with 25 ml of isopropyl alcohol. I’ll leave these set for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

June 25th

I recalled that Leif Luscombe had a recipe for varnish in which he’d used these ingredients, so went back to look at it. In the section on colour down at the bottom, he mentions that the container should be placed in warm water to bring out the dye. So we’ll do that today and tomorrow with the sandalwood and catechu I’ve got soaking, and see what happens.

June 26th

A bit of the sandalwood spilled out into the soak water, and looks like blood. Promising, but I’m going to put that aside for a future attempt. The catechu actually is brown. After straining, I have about 14 ml of brown alcohol, to which I add seven ml of Canada balsam. The effect is still not as strong as I’d like, but it registers well enough for a picture.

June 27th

I could get a deeper brown by giving it a few more coats I’m sure, but I would like to wrap this up before backofthebook.ca wraps up for the summer, so I added two pinches of very finely powdered shungite to the remaining brown varnish. Shungite is very, very black, and so fine there’s no need to filter;it’s like adding pure black. It’s a bit of a cheat, of course, since we’re coming close to crossing the line between a transparent varnish and a paint.

So, after all that, how does it sound? Very nice. How can a board sound? Well, you hold it gently by one corner and tap on it with a small hammer. It does resonate with a pleasant tone with a nice sustain. Of course, it did pretty much the same thing before I put all this goop on it. Simeon Chambers sells nice tone wood, even his scrap pieces.

That’s one of the several things for the next attempt; record before and after tap tones to see if there’s even a subtle difference. I think it has a better sustain from what I remember, but it would be nice to have an audio recording to refer to. Next time I will use two or three coats of powdered obsidian enriched vernice bianca, but without colour. The sandalwood layer will be stronger in colour, and rather than cheat with the shungite, I’ll see what sort of brown I can get with multiple layers. I’ll also add some spike oil to slow drying in the interests of getting more even layers, and will experiment with sanding between layers towards getting a smoother surface.

Not ash, but glass. There you have the secret of Antonio Stradivari.

By Eric Pettifor

Here are some links for further reading on the subject:

Investigating the secrets of the Stradivarius

Stradivari’s Ground, VSA Papers

The varnished truth about a Stradivarius

Violin finishes

Secrets of the Stradivarius: An Interview with Joseph Nagyvary

I’m glad she wasn’t after Nikes, because we all know the history of Nike’s exploitation of workers in the third world, and I would hate to think my sister was supporting that sort of thing. Thankfully I am completely ignorant of who exactly New Balance is exploiting and how, so I didn’t have to worry about it.

She was puzzled by the price difference between two models which otherwise seemed quite similar, except for the colour of the trim. One was $75, the other around a hundred. It’s an interesting question, given that these things only cost a couple of bucks to make, if that. Why does one thing which costs a couple of bucks to produce cost $25 more than another thing which costs a couple of bucks to produce? (Neither resembled another model which had fancy pink pillar heel supports, and cost $109.00 For a conspicuous gimmick, of course, you would expect to pay extra.)

I would like to believe that anyone with a brain knows these things are a rip-off, a colossal consumer con-job. Unfortunately for this conjecture, my sister has a brain, and, as mentioned, swears by New Balance running shoes. And I must confess, I didn’t myself realize the full extent to which these things are a con-job. I was of the opinion that a decent pair of running shoes, though grossly over priced, would still be better than, say, a generic pair of canvas high tops. Sure, generic high tops are a great way to say screw you to footwear corporations, but do they provide adequate shock absorption, and support, and all that stuff that I’ve been programmed to regard as essential for the well-being of my feet? They’re just canvas after all.

As it turns out, cheaper may be better. The Daily Mail website recently published an interesting article titled The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money?, in which they make some astonishing claims.

For example, did you know that injuries increase relative to the price of running shoes? I will have to call my sister’s attention to this fact since, sadly, she opted for the more expensive of the shoes, blithely unaware of the risk. The Mail’s article cites a 1989 study in which participants in a 15 km race filled out a survey on their experience for the previous year. Turns out 45% of them had suffered an injury, with the likelihood of injury directly related to cost of running shoe: “Runners in shoes that cost more than $95 were more than twice as likely to get hurt as runners in shoes that cost less than $40.”

Now, you might be leery of taking anything published in the Daily Mail as gospel. You may also be familiar with the old adage that correlation does not prove causation, that is, a third factor could be involved. Perhaps those who are most passionate about running are also the ones who spend the most on their foot gear and the most likely to push themselves unreasonably. And it may be that going barefoot is the best solution of all. This more “sciency” take on the subject at sportsci.org concludes that, no matter what the brand or cost or conspicuous gimmicks, running shoes in general contribute to sprains, plantar fasciitis, and “other chronic injuries of the lower limb.”

The gist of all this is that the human foot is more than adequately evolved for long distance running. In fact, it is so well adapted to the task that just about anything you try to do to improve upon it is actually going to impair its performance.

Fortunately, this fact isn’t being lost on the footwear companies either. Nike has produced yet another model of running shoe, this one called the Nike Free. It looks to me like just another running shoe, but the advertising makes explicit reference to evolution and how wonderful our feet are. So even though you’d just be buying another $100 pair of running shoes by a company with a history of gross exploitation of workers, at least the image (and for these folk, image is everything) is on the right track.

If you don’t care about image, you might want to check out the Vibram Five Fingers foot . . . thing. It’s like a cross between a minimalist piece of footwear and a five-toed sock. Looking at ebay, it appears they’re in the trendy footwear hundred dollar zone. (Once again, I claim no knowledge of their third world practices. Hey, for all we know, they’re a fair trade company, right?)

Or if you’re not just interested in liberation of the feet but also liberation from corporations, or perhaps preservation of your wallet, you can get a DIY Minimalist Huarache Running Sandals kit from Barefoot Ted’s Adventures. Heck, even if you order them fully made they’re still less expensive than Vibram or Nike.

Or as spring turns into summer and the weather gets milder, here’s an idea: Why not just shuck your footwear altogether and run free?

(Note, neither the author nor the management are encouraging you to go barefoot. Any injury you suffer from going barefoot including, but not limited to, injury from glass, nails, sharp rocks, discarded needles, bee stings, or infection of said injuries from stepping in feces, are strictly your responsibility.)

My first keyboard had 101 keys, no presumptuous “Windows” key (though back in those pre-Linux days the presumption would have been correct), and a firm “clicky” action which was rhythmic music to a touch typist’s ears. Over the years, as I upgraded and changed parts, my first keyboard came along for the ride. Today it is one of two parts of that original computer that I still have. The other is one of the last of the Radiation King monitors, a 14″ colour crt which refuses to die.

I’m no longer using either of these parts day to day. By the time I reassigned the keyboard to server duty it had acquired an adapter for its AT-style connector, allowing it to be connected to the PS/2-style port. Now that computers are moving to USB, it will require an adapter to the adapter to be used on a modern computer.

I replaced the old keyboard with another slightly less old keyboard, a genuine IBM Model M with PS/2 connector.

My original keyboard was essentially a Taiwanese knock off of the Model M. It didn’t have a metal backplate, so it was quieter. The Model M, for all its clicky, built for combat, rat-a-tat goodness, is not the keyboard for those who like to type at 4 AM while their partners sleep in the next room. But if that’s not a problem, then it’s absolutely the right choice for any touch typist who learned to type prior to the age of ubiquitous cell phones, perhaps on one of the venerable IBM Selectrics. The Model M is a real keyboard.

I did flirt briefly with the Happy Hacker Keyboard. It looks like they’ve been bought out by Fujitsu since then and suffered a slight name change. I also have an old Fujitsu keyboard with pretty good action that I’m hanging on to.

Besides the noise, the primary downside of the Model M is that it is kind of ugly – one of those keyboards from a time when everything PC was some shade of beige. It also has, as most keyboards do still, a row of of seldom used function keys, and a complete number keypad. The Happy Hacker (or now, Happy Hacking Keyboard), on the other hand, was (is) beautifully compact, and came (comes) in black. Aesthetically very sweet. But sadly, the action is nowhere near as nice as the Model M.

The other day Slashdot posted a story about a keyboard mod which goes a very long way to eliminating the aesthetic limitations of the Model M. Check this out.

Is that not a thing of beauty? Based on the Model M, but completely reworked aesthetically. Gleaming brass against the black. Vintage keys. So sweet. Sadly, it’s a do it yourself type project which involves the cutting and polishing of 1/4″ brass. So tempted to get some and see if my rotary tool would be up to the cutting of it. The one improvement I would make would be to do the modification to a Model M Space Saver (Wow, clickykeyboards.com had one in stock, but don’t look for it because I just grabbed it!)

When it comes to keyboards, new is seldom better. Give me the classics every time.

- o -
Speaking of light, interesting news with regard to big fricken’ lasers. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is on the verge of developing a laser so big and powerful it reminds me of the phaser of Star Trek fame — the ship mounted ones. They figure they need about 100 kW standard output to use it as a weapon, so the hand phaser will have to wait until the batteries necessary to store that kind of power are considerably smaller. Currently they require a big trailer or 747 to house them, and it would be helpful if the target were to stay still for the several seconds necessary to do damage. This is not a weapon we want to take on the Klingons with just yet. But at 67 kW, they are getting there.

Really the most important part of the equation isn’t the flashy laser bits, but rather the batteries. I want batteries so powerful that not only will my car go for thousands of miles on them, but they will also power the hood-mounted phaser bank. Cut me off, will you? Lock on phasers, Mr. Sulu!

In DRM related news, it looked for a second as though EMI was going to lighten up on DRM restrictions for online music retailers. However, it turns out that they want loads of cash in exchange, and are getting no takers.

Allofmp3.com remains in business and the best deal in online music for now.