The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1896-03-15
A NEW STRADlVARIUS
Seattle Has q Violin Maker Of
Great Assurance.
THE SECRET OF HIS CONFIDENCE
A Little Machine, His Own Invention,
Which Insures Perfect Accuracy
In the Construction.

There is q violin maker in this city
who has an altogether new theory in re.
gard to this instrument. and one so new
that IT Is totally at variance with tho
general impression. II is that there Is 70
acciden, or luck in the superior tone
quality OF violin. but that they can be
made Of a given tone one after the other
with perfect assurance. II has been assert
ed that a good. honest yioiia maker may
turn out fifty specimens OF his best work,
and yet only q few of these prove to De
frst-class instruments. The history or
famous masters IN the art would seem 10
bear out this assertion.
H. w. Cakes. who has teen making -io-
Inns IN this city for eighteen months, and
elsewhere for nearly twice as many years,
brushes all this away like q mouldy cob
web. and says he can insure a frst-class
Instrument every time, and that there Is no
secret about 1t.
that they do all their work by rule OF
thumb and by the eye. I make mine by
mathematical rules. Once having attain
ed . certain perfection, ! can duplicate
that result with mathematical accuracy.
And the toner"
THE tone follows as = matter Of course.
1t must Now, there used to be secrets in
the art. of course II was long before any
one could turn out an instrument that
First. they thought the secret of the lat
ter's superiority lay in the varnish, and
many years were spent IN attempts 10 find
out that secret. They found It out at last,
or rather that II was no secret. They dis
covered iha, the cabinet makers OF Gre
mona used the same varnish as Stradiya1
used Then they thought the secret must
be in the wood. and for some time they
pinned their confidence to that They
took extraordinary pains to get just such
resonance and letter tone, and even took
the wood from a fine violin and put IL IN
with other wood. but with all their eff
forts they made as many failures as sue
cesses
Now, Stradivari used the same material
for the whole of the 500 vsolins he made.
and ye. the good violins were the acci-
dent. Only fifty OF ali ne made turned out
to be good instruments, and yet you call
him master"
Are there any violins comparable with
these fifty?"
Certainly. Within the last fifty years
Just as good violins have been made as
have ever been made
But age has something to do with
toner
Undoubtedly, provided the violin Is
played on. 1t might lie a century. and IL
not used would not improve at all. NiolinS
are like everything else In the world;
they have their birth, their growth. ma
turity and decline. would say that at
about 70 violin would be at its best.
know that after hundred years they
begin to lose their power, and finally be-
come comparatively worthless so far as
tono Is concerned"
And how. in making an instrument, are
you 50 confident what Its tone will be. Mr..
Oakes?"
by this little machine here" he re-
piled. pointing to a machine that had the
appearance of a little turning lathe. IF
you take one Of my violins, and mark 1t
into small squares. you Will find the thick
ness corresponds In each corresponding
square. This machine Will show the diff
ference, II 1t is only the thickness of
piece of gold leaf. I spent twenty years
studying the defects of viol,ns, and how
TO remedy them. before made one. Then
I got IL down TO mathematical nicely, and
/ made this machine to insure IT..
"Why, here Is shop violin. costing
$3.50. that have worked on for expert
ment. Because of its correction of tone It
is now worth from $50 to 500.
How many viol.ns could you make in
a Year,
month; say ten in the course of year.
and II disposed OF that number in Seat
tie should he contented and happy"
'If they should all prove to be good?'
was hazarded.
There is no II. They would be mathe-
matically perfect. and the tone would
speak for itself straight to the heart CT
these who know music