Re: playing outdoors

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Pauline Lerner
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> The survival of this violin and its good sound after repair and warm up
> almost constitute a miracle.  How would you explain it?  Was the collapsed
> bridge a factor?  

It was somewhat amazing to me as well, considering the likely
variations of temperature and humidity. I'm not sure what the effect of
relieving string tension had upon its survival, nor do we know how long
ago the bridge had been collapsed before we recovered it. 

It's survival may have been due to the environmental changes in storage
taking place gradually over many hours or days. A building that is
heated may see more rapid changes in conditions (as often economic
factors may forestall heating/cooling until the temperature becomes
uncomfortable) as opposed to a storage environment that is not
artificially heated/air conditioned. 

Certainly the geographic location of the storage site has much to do
with temp/humidity extremes and factors. Another thing that may have
contributed to it's survival was it being buried in a pile of lumber.

> It had been stored in closets and not played for many years.
> Being uninformed, I did not loosen the strings when I stored it.  One day, I
> opend the mandolin case and found my beloved instrument in smithereens.  It
> had broken into lots of small pieces and was completely beyond repair.  I
> still grieve for it, even though I have bought better quality mandolins
> since then.  Do you suppose that the splintering of my mandolin was due to
> the pressure of the strings on the bridge?

Pauline, this is most unfortunate, as I'm sure it was a dearly
cherished heirloom. I'm sure it was a painful loss. I'm certainly no
expert on long-term storage and preservation, but folks I know who have
experience in museum storage have told me that their first concern is
always to maintain as constant humidity and temperature environment as
possible, as the drying/shrinkage and humidity absorbsion/expansion
cycles on wooden instruments can be detrimental over time if the
extremes become significant. Sometimes the storage conditions are
matched to the wood, and based on the enviroment of the wood's origin.

I'm sure there may be others on this forum who are professional
conservators who can comment further on this subject, but it seems to
me that the stresses of environmental changes may have had been a
contributing factor with the demise of your stored mandolin.

I have seen violins that had remained fully tensioned in long term
storage that needed the necks reset, and ones that were loose tensioned
in storage that had fallen sound posts. Many instruments in neglected
long-term storage have their pegs shrink and become untensioned. I have
never found one myself that had phyically disintegrated due to being
fully tensioned in storage. 

-Turloch