OK, this is technical post so anyone who doesnt understand or doesnt know about Daniel and me going into great technical discussions on the mechanics and physics of violin operation, bear with me on this...

I have been making bridges, modifying them and doing a lot of analysis of their ability to transmit the most and the right sound from the strings to the body and to your ears, and Daniel sent me a small piece of Goat Skin which was used on a drum head. Now, you'd first think of goat hide as a coarse, tough leather like your shoe, but... this particular hide was so tough, that a razor blade would barely cut it, well it mostly would score the hide and then you could tear it...but I decided to use a very sharp paper punch which cut a perfect circle about a 1/4" in dia.

Why would I want to do this? Well... most of us have seen the tiny plastic sleeves that fit over the E string nd get trapped against the top (or shoulder) of the bridge. Well, the E string is like a cheese slicer and will cut thru hard maple like chain saw! So... in the interest of asking "WHY?", I decided to address the probability that the use of a skin patch instead of a plastic sleeve would enhance the sound since it has properties suitable for sound transmission and is used in the music world anyway.

I didn't have any hide glue but considering the desire to make the joint as solid as possible, I figured a drop of super glue wouldn't violate any unwritten law of luthiership. I inverted the violin and thus the bridge with the E string removed, placed a drop up against the E string groove position and then gently but firmly placed the disk of hide against the bridge and carefully wrapped it around the bridge holding it in place for a few seconds until the glue had set.

Luckily I didn't put on too much so none was causing my fingers to be forever glued to a small maple slab. I let it sit for about 10-15 minutes before placing it back in operation. I then tensioned the E string, and proceeded with the testing.

Herein is the disk shown attached to the bridge and the resultant sound analysis trace graphic. You can see that the trace was improved (smoothed out) and the sound enhanced (a better dB level achieved) between 10,000 and 18,000 Hz and very smooth beyond with far less peaks and valleys.

I find this very interesting indeed. Thank you Daniel for sharing that valuable piece of goat hide...