Same thing again!

I know you've been there. Seems like day after day you do the same thing, but nothing ever gets accomplished. I haven't worked more than 20 minutes or so any day on violin stuff. It seems like I've worked on it more, but I haven't. Anyway, I've done some things. I have the tailpiece ready for the little ridge thing. Don't know what it is called. I don't think it is really called a little ridge thing. I started cutting out 4 different ones and two broke. One is still ok, and this yellowheart piece still needs some saw work. The other is a nice creamy textured rosewood. But I had in my mind trying something different, yellowheart on ebony. If I snap this one off I guess it will be rosewood instead. Tomorrow I'll put the little ridge thing in.
The other thing I've played around with is the ground sample. My other grounds were thinned varnish, or water based, casien mixed with other stuff I don't even remember! Seemed too thick and blocked the clarity of the grain. These are better. I put a thin coat of oil varnish over them and they look good. You can see the four different grounds, separated by a space of bare wood. The varnish on the bare wood looks almost yellow, the grounded areas are more like different shades of cardboard. The wood sample isn't uniform enough to get a direct comparison, but they all seemed to keep the varnish from soaking into the wood. I shared my ground recipes with varnish guru Joe Robson (violinvarnish.com) and he remarked "What was I thinking?" That means he was impressed, right? Well a statement like that is perfect for someone with the motto "why be normal". I almost have the belly tuned up. Once it is done, I may put a ground coat on it then check the tuning again. I don't know if it will change, but some makers have said that it will. We'll see.