I would like to share a story about the experience of Mr. Gaspar Borchardt of Cremona : I discussed with him the problems of wood treatment a lot of times.

During the better part of fifteen years we have been acquainted, first mistake he made was his lack of patience which resulted in the wood he was working with being taken out of the
water too early ( after about 6 months ), second mistake he made was using the same wood to make a violin a few months latter. His third mistake was that the next batch of wood
he attempted to treat was submerged with a too low a ratio of water to wood ( too little water too much wood ), 102 mistake he made was ....., 403 mistake he made was...
It took a few years for him to completely unintentionally go back to the first batch of wood he attempted to treat and unhappy with the results dismissed the value of the wood treatment.
He made a violin which he did not consider important but when completed turned out to sound incredible, his lack of patience was compensated for by time, and the bacteria in the wood completed the process by themselves in the course of the few years they were left on their own.
I hope you understand that the treatment does consist of submerging the wood in water ; active processes start at the point of wood being taken out of the water.

The important thing is to understand that after the wood is taken out of the water the real treatment begins; and that the wood instead of being immediately dried should be kept moist as long as possible.

The story about Paolo Vetorri :ten years ago, he made the trip from Bologna in order to share his short story with me : " I was very young, at the beginning of my career, my grandfather talked me into submerging a great quantity of wood ( Into which I had sunk my life savings ) under water. I did so and after a while the wood turned very dark and practically unusable. I was very angry at my grandfather and did not speak to him for a long time believing that he ruined the beginning of my career. Only now, after 50 years do I realize my mistake; I had not submerged the wood properly so it was, after absorbing a great quantity of water, partly exposed to air. This caused it to darken and be unusable. Now I know that you and my grandfather are right".
What I am trying to say, is that making mistakes in this process is inevitable, but large mistakes can be avoided if : you allow app. 10 liters of water per one piece of violin wood; put it all into a container that does not have acidic reactivity ( plastic container ), under no circumstances into a metal one; this wood should be kept under water at all times with a glass or a plastic weight , stone and metal both cause acidic reactions,wait until the wood stays at the bottom by itself after the weight is removed and than leave it for another few months under water until the wood is completely permeated with water to its core.

Allow me to digress a little regarding your comment that it is necessary for the wood to be fresh in order to be treated. If we assume that average air humidity of our environment is 77 % we can then conclude that the wood stored in your workshop is NEVER dry, however much you hoped for it and that this wood, as any other organic matter, contains bacteria within. This bacteria may not be completely active and able to proliferate. But they are not, by any means dead. They can lay dormant for years until necessary conditions of humidity and temperature are met. Therefore it is absolutely possible to treat the wood which has been stored for extensive periods of time. 

Let us go back to our previous theme. So ; you have taken the wood out of the water; now the real process starts and also the possibility of making mistakes raises dramatically .

Example :

a. you have stored the wood in a place that dries it too fast,the bacteria get lazy again before they have disintegrated enough sugars within the wood;
b. you have stored the wood in a place too humid ( a cellar for example ), on the surface a fine cobweb has formed, yeast has developed which enter the structure of wood, eat the basic protein structure of wood and your wood is now unusable;
c. you have done everything correctly, but have stored the wood on a shelf and are patiently waiting for months only to discover that yeast has formed again on the surface of the wood touching the shelf it was stored on. Oh no ! You have forgotten to elevate the wood from the surface so that the air can circulate freely.
d. you have done this previous point correctly but have forgotten to leave the necessary distance of min. 3 centimeters between two pieces of wood, in this space excess humidity allowed the yeast to form and again you have a problem.
e. you have done the previous correctly as well, but have allowed the back of the wood to be too close to the wall and again yeast has attacked.
f.Very important question is if the wood has been stored on the shelf ( strip of wood separating it from the shelf ) with the bottom surface being the wider part of the wood or if you have laid it down on it's side ?
My visit to Guiccardi 1999: he showed me 150 pieces of violin maple wood in his workshop of which he considered 147 to be inferior and only 3 usable for making a high quality violin; when split, only the 3 pieces had the same tone on the left and the right side when knocked on. He was desperate because all of the wood was of high quality to start with and he could not fathom why this was happening.
" Only these three pieces can be used to make high quality violins the rest also have to be used for violins, and this leaves me with an existential and moral problem, because I can not make a living from just three violins ".
I tried to explain to him that in wood stored in this manner ( on top of each other ), humidity in worm months moves upwards just as vapors do and that in the more humid parts of the wood, being permeated with more active bacteria, less sugar remains therefore making
the difference in tone inevitable.Generally his problem contained in his less than careful storage of wood.
g. You have done everything right, but somewhere between 12.00 and 1.30 on a summer day sun enters your workshop and lingers on the wood for a while, your wood starts drying too rapidly and cracking, micro air pockets have formed within the wood , your hair has risen and at this point you responsibly decided to change your profession...

My advice: find 3 pieces of maple wood cut from the same tree and also 3 pieces of spruce wood also cut from the same tree, mark each of them with a date. First set a maple and a spruce store exactly as you have been doing so far in your workshop. Second set a maple and a spruce throw into the water as I previously elaborated.

THIRD SET A MAPLE AND A SPRUCE, AS THE OLD MASTERS PROBABLY DID, LEAVE SOMEWHERE IN YOUR YARD WHERE THEY ARE NOT EXPOSED TO TOO MUCH HUMIDITY, NOT EXACTLY ON THE GROUND, WHERE THEY ARE SOMETIMES TOUCHED BY THE SUN AND SOMETIMES RAINED ON.

The second set of wood you should take out of the water after approximately 18 months and follow my previous instructions perfectly, and please avoid any mistakes!

DO NOT BE CONCERNED IF THE WOOD FROM YOUR THIRD SET TURNED GRAY, IT IS ONLY ON THE SURFACE, INSIDE IT HAS BEAUTIFUL GOLDEN BROWN COLOR, THE CRACKS FORMED BY THE SUN ARE NOT DEEPER THAN 6 MILLIMETERS,SO YOU CAN CUT THEM OFF WITHOUT A PROBLEM. SOMETIMES ROTATE THE WOOD, MOVE IT TO ANOTHER CORNER IN YOUR YARD... IN OTHER WORDS TREAT IT AS ANY WOODWORKER EVEN TODAY TREATS HIS WOOD; WITH EASE AND NO TREPIDATION.

Few years later make violins out of the three sets of wood, one after the other. Compare them.

My comment : If you allowed me I would advise you to skip the first two experiments altogether- you are wasting your time !

Don't think it is easy for me while my wife ( whose English is much better than mine ) is translating this letter to you. I would just be very happy if I managed to save you 30 years of unnecessary and painful experiments.

Milo Stamenkovich

Selecting and purchasing the wood

Old Italians have used the wood directly beneath the bark only to cut the neck of the instrument. This has a simple reason: The ingestion of nutrients of the trees happens through the capillaries of the cambium layer. From here the nutrients will be leaded to the crown where the wood grows. Layer by layer the tree gets a new coat every year. The cambium layer produces sapwood to the inside and bast and bark outside. Naturally more nutrients can be found in the younger annual rings. Older trees have less nutrition content and weight the further you get to the core. Wood with a lot of< nutrients is not suitable for making violins. Heavy parts of the wood should be avoided. It is possible to discern which part of the wood is unsuitable for the violin production.

If one looks carefully at a piece of wood for the back of a violin, the change from younger, well-nourished wood ( under the bark of the tree ) to older wood ( from the core ) can be recognized by differences in color. The younger wood may be lighter or darker. In extreme cases, the difference can be seen only by turning the wood under light. The younger wood should not be used in the middle of the back. It is not flexible enough, witch hinders vibration and thereby the character of the sound.
Before the dealer drops the wood off, make sure to ask him to cut the bottoms almost ( ! ) in half ( leave 2-3cm intact! )
You will find out later, why.

Necessary equipment: Carving knife, chopping knife, measuring tape, small saw, precision scale, and eventually a moisturizing knife.
Under no circumstances should you buy white wood, as it comes from young trees which have been nourished completely to the core. Acceptable inner colour of the wood: Yellowish, pink, reddish, and brownish ( The marrow rays must not be brighter than the wood itself ) Watch out! It happens that the wood will be exposed to the sunlight before selling -to give it a beautiful yellow colour and to vanish the annual rings. It is recommended to cut into the wood with a knife to check if it is white inside.
The moisture of the wood should not be above 23%
Calculate the weight of the wood. Maximum weight should be no more than 0.57g/cm³.
Wood measuring from the heart to the beginning of the sapwood (splint) has to be sufficient to cut out the bottom.

Annual rings: The closer the winter rings are, the less nutrients the wood contains ( Maple only grows in summer and deposits the nutrients between the winter lines )The annual rings need to run straight.

Pith rays: The more the better! The tree creates pith rays if it has trouble in nutrition. Darker pith rays show the nutrients are stiff and the tree is older. Brighter pith rays are found in young trees. Young trees are fully nourished, heavy in weight and not usable to build instruments.

Splitting direction: The course of the fibre is of great importance!! Wood with continuous fibre course is elastic, stable in form during moistening variations, breathes with the sound… Wood not cut in splitting direction is stiff, brittle, “works” during moistening variations, absorbs the sound…

How can we find out? 1. Wood not cut along the splitting direction has the sever fibres stand up on the surface. If you pass your hand over the surface, the wood feels rougher in one direction.
2. If you look from both front sides over the surface the colour of the wood needs to appear the same. If one side is darker than the other – the splitting direction has been ignored.
3. Optimum pith rays are wide, straight and clearly visible. Not optimum pith rays ( cut out of the splitting direction ) are slightly bended, narrow and brighter in appearance.
4. On the thicker part of the bottom you can detect clear signals of the actual course of the splitting direction.
5. Take the bottom and break it along the cutting line into two parts. Now you can clearly see the course of the splitting direction.
6. If the bottom had not yet been cut through, cut off 2cm of the front side. Split it in radial direction ( heart-bark direction ). The splitting direction is now clearly visible.
7. Please do not go into your warehouse now and try this on your already bought wood! The year went great so far…

Milo Stamm

If we carefully observe all of Nicolle Amati's instruments, even without a great deal of foreknowledge, it is not difficult to see the unprecedented skill with which he moved through the wood.There is practically not one instrument he made without great attention to the way the wood splits , it's inner line of splitting.

There is not a tree that grows absolutely straight, maple especially - slight movement to the left or right is a more or less regular characteristic of this tree.
We have to cut our bridges at the natural line of splitting or they would otherwise warp and wouldn't conduct sound with optimal speed. This means that the percentage of wood that can be used for bridges is not more than 30% of the whole tree, the rest is used to heat the space we work in, it is very calorie dense and burns beautifully.

Curves of Amati's instruments follow the movement inherent within the wood. Doesn't this obviously mean that it is impossible to copy instruments ( amongst which the most copied ones are Guarneri's and Stradivari's ) because the curves they created on their instruments were dictated by the piece of wood they used.
If the head and the neck of the instrument are not cut along the exact line of natural way the wood splits, regardless how dry the wood is, cutting through the grain will cause the neck to warp. This warp, after just a few months, may not be obvious to the naked eye, but if it exists - the balance of pressure the strings exert on the bridge changes and with it the complete balance of pressure on the upper and lower board of the instrument. Tone you managed to organize within the instrument will change over time and the musician will come to your workshop unhappy.

And what about the bottom board? Twenty years ago I witnessed a simple experiment done with maple wood: Two very thin strips of wood were cut; one along the natural line the wood splits and the other with a tiny deviation from that line; both strips were exactly the same length, width and thickness and both cut from the same piece of wood. Equal bending showed that one of them had a propensity to break. Guess which one?
Now, if the bottom board of the instrument is cut without respect for the wood's natural line of splitting, it will be stiff and unable to to optimally conduct the vibrations of the upper board ( membrane ) and the instrument will not be able to manifest a wide, carrying tone; this tone doesn't have it's echo, it's possibilities are narrowed and the instrument can't sound as beautifully as the instruments of the old masters.

Let's get back to Amati: he always recognized this natural inner line of splitting inherent in the wood and skillfully used it's gentle movements in his search for curves of his instruments.
He also, skillfully, led by this idea, selected the upper boards : always seeking the movement within the wood which would allow him to make the curve without injury ( wood elasticity ).

If we assume that everything that was previously stated is correct, then it becomes impossible to make a copy of one of the old masters and this shouldn't even be be attempted.

Isn't it obvious that Amati had no old master to copy ! From the 7th century ?! Of course not !! He just allowed himself to follow the nature of that specific piece of wood that evolved in his hands into an instrument !

To find this movement within the wood and use it to build the instrument - of course is not easy. But I personally don't know a master who after seriously pondering this theme, forgot everything, and then went back to the old way of thinking. I assume that this way of finding the form, for a master, is a great adventure and when found, a great source of pleasure.

Milo Stamm