investments are focused on violins. Their economic value is due to many factors such as their history, the intangible value of their sound, and the myths associated with the greatest lutherie’s masters. Many historical instruments made by Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri, and Guadagnini are still played, and many others are preserved within public museums. The particular sound of these instruments depends partly on the musician who plays them, but primarily on the intrinsic characteristics of the violin. This is closely related to the design, the making technique, the varnish finishing, and the set-up, established a priori by the violin maker. The structural complexity of the violin and the difficulty of obtaining permission to perform scientific analysis have helped to maintain the mystery of what makes the sound of the historical instruments so suggestive, feeding the myths even more. Currently there are only a few scientific contributions published by international scientific journals relating to antique musical instruments. However, in recent years a portion of the contemporary lutherie community has demonstrated great curiosity about the area of applied research, recognizing it could be a means to rediscover the “know-how” of the masters. They believe that non-invasive characterization of historical materials and the modeling of geometries and shapes, could enable the modern luthier to modify his or hertechnical approach, perfecting it more and more. The aim of the scientific research is thus the reconstruction of working processes followed by the ancient luthiers through a comparison between the analytical results and the bibliographic historical sources. Today the new Museo del Violino in Cremona hosts two laboratories of applied research at the University of Pavia and the Politecnico di Milano. Their teams of scientists are involved in the study of the historical instruments of the museum collection in order to put the contemporary violin maker even more in contact with the knowledge of antique violin making methods. The non-invasive diagnostic laboratory of the University of Pavia uses scientific facilities specifically adopted for these purposes, including VIS-UV photography, endoscopy, X-ray digital radiography, stereoscopy, FTIR reflection spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, and 3D laser scanning. Of particular interest to the violin making community is the possible opportunity to obtain 3D models of historical musical instruments via the 3D laser scanner and create some parts of them using a low cost 3D printer. Information gained with these non-invasive techniques would change the rules for the enjoyment of these repositories of cultural heritage in the safest possible way. The laboratory is currently developing a method for the acquisition of musical instrument 3D models, and performing trials of printing sections of these models with a desktop 3D printer.

3D Printer Technology and Violin Making Tradition: an Outlook on Potential Applications and Open Questions

T. Rovetta
Writing – Original Draft Preparation
;
C. Invernizzi;M. Licchelli;CACCIATORI, FAUSTO;M. Malagodi
2014-01-01

Abstract

investments are focused on violins. Their economic value is due to many factors such as their history, the intangible value of their sound, and the myths associated with the greatest lutherie’s masters. Many historical instruments made by Stradivari, Amati, Guarneri, and Guadagnini are still played, and many others are preserved within public museums. The particular sound of these instruments depends partly on the musician who plays them, but primarily on the intrinsic characteristics of the violin. This is closely related to the design, the making technique, the varnish finishing, and the set-up, established a priori by the violin maker. The structural complexity of the violin and the difficulty of obtaining permission to perform scientific analysis have helped to maintain the mystery of what makes the sound of the historical instruments so suggestive, feeding the myths even more. Currently there are only a few scientific contributions published by international scientific journals relating to antique musical instruments. However, in recent years a portion of the contemporary lutherie community has demonstrated great curiosity about the area of applied research, recognizing it could be a means to rediscover the “know-how” of the masters. They believe that non-invasive characterization of historical materials and the modeling of geometries and shapes, could enable the modern luthier to modify his or hertechnical approach, perfecting it more and more. The aim of the scientific research is thus the reconstruction of working processes followed by the ancient luthiers through a comparison between the analytical results and the bibliographic historical sources. Today the new Museo del Violino in Cremona hosts two laboratories of applied research at the University of Pavia and the Politecnico di Milano. Their teams of scientists are involved in the study of the historical instruments of the museum collection in order to put the contemporary violin maker even more in contact with the knowledge of antique violin making methods. The non-invasive diagnostic laboratory of the University of Pavia uses scientific facilities specifically adopted for these purposes, including VIS-UV photography, endoscopy, X-ray digital radiography, stereoscopy, FTIR reflection spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, and 3D laser scanning. Of particular interest to the violin making community is the possible opportunity to obtain 3D models of historical musical instruments via the 3D laser scanner and create some parts of them using a low cost 3D printer. Information gained with these non-invasive techniques would change the rules for the enjoyment of these repositories of cultural heritage in the safest possible way. The laboratory is currently developing a method for the acquisition of musical instrument 3D models, and performing trials of printing sections of these models with a desktop 3D printer.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11571/1308746
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