Design Aspects, Montagnana

Now that you know how I draw things up, this one will be easy. He used .618 for the base, as del Gesu did. Where the mold for the del Gesu is only 344 long, this one is 347 long. Wider overhangs will make it 5mm longer. The apex is 2.75 up. the lower bout is .809 down, lower corner .6 down, upper corner cos 54 degrees of that (another.809 number) and the upper bout is half of that down. The c bout is 3/8 between as the del Gesu was, which happens to be, in a roundabout way, another.809 number.

The width of the lower bout is given by the corner triangle. The upper bout is, you guessed it, .809 of the lower. And the center bout is about 1/2 of the lower. The triangle for the f holes is built the same as the del Gesu. The lower eyes are set lower, using the .63 number instead of .618. The upper eyes are set quite close.

The bass bars on both seem to be 1/5th of the bouts to the outer edge. Works great for the del Gesu; this one would need a 39mm or so wide bridge at the feet. The C bouts are almost identical. I drew the Montagnana on the right side of the del Gesu, and you can see that it is just shorter.

The big difference is in the corners. Del Gesu pulled his bout outlines out at the corners, and used a larger radius. Montagnana curved his bouts in, and used a small radius. The result is monster corners, the likes of which Roger Hargrave would post a picture of and caption it: "Ponder that for a while."

The f holes on the Montagnana I drew up may be too long. But they look cool enough, and match my criteria, if not the intended one. They look the same as the del Gesu ones. It must be just the shape that I like. I drew them on the same piece of Bristol paper, so you can see how similar they are with the light box.

You can see the line where the cross arches end, and a flat platform stays. Later that area will be made convex, after the outside has the recurve put in. I have the del Gesu one penciled in on this one to show that they are almost the same. I have the notches for the blocks figured out, and the location of the holes to use in gluing the ribs on.

You can see how the template for the catenary curve ties in with the upper f hole. Even a cello I drew up is like that. I don't know that it means anything, but they do.