<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#F2F2F2">   Gerald Posey wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">Too much varnish on a violin is akin to wrapping it tightly in a coat of leather.  It dampens the vibrations.  But some damping is good.  How much is good?..... Who knows?.  If I could achieve depth of color in two thin coats (rubbed out) I would be satisfied.</blockquote> </blockquote> Some would have it that for the amount of varnish to have a measurable difference in acoustic quality, there would have to be relatively massive amounts used. Course they are talking about piano soundboards, tho I would assume in principle the same would have to apply to violins since they are not THAT different from each other. Just out of curiousity.... what would you say the acoustical effect of coating your whole soundboard (violin) with epoxy first ?   Cheers RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A>   </body> </html>