Letters, emails, online comments

LETTER of the MONTH

SWEET RELIEF 

I have repaired a great many instrument top plates with cracks starting at the edges of the saddle.

I wonder why, over the centuries, violin makers have cut out a rectangular pocket for the saddle and cut through the purfling. This makes the stress at the sharp corners several times higher than the average plate stress. The windows of aeroplanes are never rectangular with sharp corners for this reason. I was taught by luthier Edward Campbell in his workshops to put a radius at the corners of the pocket, drill a 10mm-diameter hole at each end, and cut the pocket tangent to the holes.

This relieves the stress concentration at these corners and the purfling will reinforce the plate. Violinists and restorers in the next century will thank you if you do the same!

CHARLES WOODS

Ridgecrest, CA, US

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS 

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (right) was indeed the ‘son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges (a wealthy planter of Huguenot descent) and Anne Nanon (an enslaved chambermaid of African descent)’, (‘The remarkable revolutionary’, February). The author surprisingly omits to reveal that George was himself a slave owner, and that Nanon was among the people he counted as his legal property. At the time of Joseph’s birth, the 16-year-old Nanon was the chambermaid of George’s wife Elisabeth.