1923 Movie Showing Tap Tuning, Sand Vibration, etc. with violin

[BlueMountain]

While Lloyd Loar was tap tuning his mandolins in 1923, James Reynold Carlisle of Kentucky was doing the same with his violins. Some consider him one of the best American violin makers ever. This is a silent movie, in black and white, of course. Like Loar, Carlisle works in a suit and tie most of the time. Interesting to find him tap tuning the wood. Also, acoustic engineers will enjoy watching him playing a violin top with a bow to make black sand vibrate to nodes that need more work. Also interesting to watch him apply his sunburst finish and later polish the body with pumice applied with the heel of his hand.

The violin player in my band sent this link to me quite excited because her primary instrument is a Carlisle, though in the band she plays an old $100 Pennsylvania violin that doesn't look as nice, but sounds better.

https://youtu.be/2Bjm7qLpabA

[Willie Poole]

And some say on here that "Tap tuning ain`t no part of anything"...I wonder if Loar tap tuned all of the tops and backs for all mandolins or once he found the correct tones he just had them all carved to those specs?

[Marty Jacobson]

And some say on here that "Tap tuning ain`t no part of anything"...I wonder if Loar tap tuned all of the tops and backs for all mandolins or once he found the correct tones he just had them all carved to those specs?

That's exactly what tap tuning is. Find a spec that works and then use that metric or set of metrics to help you achieve consistent performance in the final product from wildly varying inputs (wood).

Cause all Loars sound exactly the same, right?

[CarlM]

I wonder if Loar tap tuned all of the tops and backs for all mandolins or once he found the correct tones he just had them all carved to those specs?

Isn't the point fo tap tuning that the tap note is the spec? Because of the variation in stiffness, density, etc. of the wood buiding the instruments to a dimensional spec causes the acoustic properties to vary from piece to piece built the same thicknesses. Therefore you adjust to the tap tone. At least that is how I understood the practice. So tapping one piece of wood does not matter because the next will be different?

[Marty Jacobson]

Isn't the point fo tap tuning that the tap note is the spec? Because of the variation in stiffness, density, etc. of the wood buiding the instruments to a dimensional spec causes the acoustic properties to vary from piece to piece built the same thicknesses. Therefore you adjust to the tap tone. At least that is how I understood the practice. So tapping one piece of wood does not matter because the next will be different?

I think Willie's comment, if I understood it correctly, was whether Loars were carved to specific dimensions & graduations once the formula was worked out, or if they were individually adjusted in order to reach their final tap tones, and therefore ended up with different thicknesses, etc.

Basically every builder uses a combination of dimensions and other metrics, which could include deflection testing, Chladni patterns, FFT spectrum analysis (which is basically the same as using a strobe tuner, just more detailed), and so on. A more vague metric is to string it up in the white and then to "see if it needs something".

So tap tuning can be used as part of the process, but it's not the whole process in and of itself.
So whatever it is that we see Mr. Carlisle doing in the video, it's going to be very different than the luthiers who were working in a more engineered production environment at Gibson. I bet there were even noteworthy differences in how things were done from bench to bench on any given day at Gibson, at least for the more skilled aspects of the work.

[Marc Berman]

FYI-He's not "tap tuning". He's taping a raw piece of wood to see if it's acceptable for his needs. At least that's what it looks like to me.

[Jim Hilburn]

He was doing the Chadni thing using a bow to excite the top.

[fscotte]

I think it has to be well controlled using similar woods. I do find that I can tap tune the top attached to the rim with neck attached to about 520Hz +- 10 hz and end up with a top near my deflection goals.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Marc B. got there before me. That's nothing whatsoever to do with tap tuning. As Marc says,the guy's simply testing the wood to hear it's response to vibrations to see if it's suitable. Try tapping an uncarved mandolin top & a similar piece of Balsa wood & you'll get the idea. 'Proper' tap tuning is done during the carving process,to determine (sort of) when the optimal wood graduations have been reached.
As for the Chladni vibration test done with the violin bow,it states that the vibration showed up a '' The blurred line of black sand reveals a faulty plane which must be sandpapered away'' So seemingly, that was done as a structural (wood) defect test,
not a bad idea at all IMHO,
Ivan

[William Smith]

Hey very KOOL video! Too bad we don't have anything of the sort of Loar or any Gibson craftsmen back from the 20's-30's doing demonstrations. A great piece of history that shows some great techniques. I know some are still used today, never heard of the black sand? It don't matter that its not tap tuning to me still KOOL! So much has been lost to history happy this recording survives.

[hank]

Maybe Marty's method of yank their chain, then sit back(luthiers popcorn break)and see the effect is similar to some of the other metrics he mentioned. There is a certain predictability to the discussion that will follow but like wood there is enough complexity to the subject and variation in wood to still leave the possibility of something new revealed from the pages of this old worn out book of magic. Much of the old literature and movie footage on the subject is in advertising used to help draw interest and improve sales of the writers affiliated musical instruments. This fact plants the seed of distrust in it's authenticity in many of us, moving the entire practice into the waste bin with all the other snake oil that master salesmen have honed into an entirely separate but almost as fascinating art form. When I see the comments of respected builders disgusted with their lost time and resources investigating these methods, I can't help doubt it's usefulness as well. As an armchair authority of nothing much at all this writer finds it difficult to not agree that the practice has much of it's authenticity based on urban legend and sales propaganda.

Is this the end of the story? Is our dominate left hemisphere of thought with only it's simple black and white symbols all that is useful to us in this intricate web of complexity that we exist in? How could knowing of something be a roadblock to discovery? I wonder?

[Jim Adwell]

The violin player in my band sent this link to me quite excited because her primary instrument is a Carlisle, though in the band she plays an old $100 Pennsylvania violin that doesn't look as nice, but sounds better.

This speaks volumes.

That giant bandsaw in the video is awesome.

[bernabe]

That bandsaw looks scary

[sblock]

As others have already pointed out, NO: this IS NOT TAP TUNING. The OP is quite mistaken. The luthier is using a different method -- one still popular with some violin makers, but debunked by many others -- namely, using Chladni sand patterns, to reveal one of the normal modes of the carved top (or the back). The sand jiggles around and tends to accumulate in the node lines of the standing waves, where the vibrations are minimized. Sharp lines indicate strong node lines. Black sand is used simply because it provides better contrast for viewing. The statement shown in the film that "The blurred line of black sand reveals a faulty plane which must be sandpapered away" may be interpreted as follows:

One of the node lines of sand appears blurry, which means that there is comparatively less flexure of the top occurring in the planar area to one side, or perhaps to both sides, of this blurry line. The proposed remedy is to thin the relevant area with some sandpaper, which would permit a bit more flexure, and thereby sharpen the node line.

Please understand that this process does not involve tuning the wood to a particular, given note. The note does not matter: it's the nodal pattern that does. Furthermore, no tapping is involved to hear that note. It is not tap tuning.

Instead, it is a process designed to enhance a given resonant mode pattern of the top. The symmetries of the normal modes are mostly set by the geometry of the top, and based on the symmetry of the mass/stiffness ratio of the graduated wood. This is not very directly related to the frequency of the resonant mode, because slightly different ratios & thickness geometries can give rise to exactly the same frequency (i.e., note)! So Chladni sand tuning and tap tuning are entirely different operations, and sensitive to different aspects of the carve. And each of these is different from deflection tuning, by the way. So, these methods are not three different ways of determining the same thing: they are three different ways of determining three different things!


(Also, I do not believe that these -- or any other violins of that era -- were made with a "sunburst finish." The color was applied more uniformly.)

[Jim Hilburn]

Wonder what sandpaper was available in the early 20s?

[Jim Hilburn]

To answer my own question it goes back to 13th century China, but was commercially made in England in the early 1800s. But 3M was making what must have been pretty similar to what we're used to by 1916 and came out with wet and dry in '21.
How quickly it was used by luthiers is still a question but sounds like they used it for those violins even though it shows guys using scrapers.
Having the work tilted up the way they did is a good idea.

[Marty Jacobson]

And each of these is different from deflection tuning, by the way. So, these methods are not three different ways of determining the same thing: they are three different ways of determining three different things!)

My point, which I think you may be responding to, was that there are many different things you can look at to understand the state of the pieces you're working on for an instrument. Whatever metrics you prefer to use, whether that's deflection, FFT spectrum plots, or whatever you like to work with, the purpose is to compare a part for a new instrument with parts for instruments you've made previously.

One thing that I think is often misunderstood. There is no requirement to achieve consistency between instruments in any of these metrics. It's possible to build consistently good, but very diffferent, instruments by varying your target instead of trying to duplicate a result.
I look at density of the individual sample of wood, mass of the plate, geometry of the plate (local thickness mostly), and FFT spectrum plots of tap tones from the plate. I don't do deflection testing or "tap tuning" because I intentionally make plates with different characteristics (floppier, stiffer, denser, less dense, and so on) to achieve different tonal properties.

[Charles E.]

I have viewed this video in the past and while it is quaint, it does not represent the best building techniques of violin making. At times I just shook my head. The Band saw is cool though.

[kjbllc]

thanks for the link