“Ah , I see you use C74’s!” declared my brother, the movie-lighting engineer.  He had just spotted my viola with the freshly glued linings clamped into place with clothes pins.  C74’s? What are they and what are they used for?

As my brother tells me: “We use C47s for lots of thing. Clipping gels and diffusions onto lights, black or white materials to things or even gathering clothes in at the back to make them appear better fitting“. The origin of the name has it’s roots in the early movie days when the studios objected to being billed for “clothes pins”, so the lighting contractors changed the line item to it’s stock name “C47”,  and possibly nudged up the price a little for the specialized equipment.

Violin lining clamps

Clothes pegs (as we call them in England) make the best lining clamps, in my opinion, but they need to be modified a little.  if you use them straight off of the washing line they tend to pinch the lining only at the top edge of the rib. By turning the arms to face outwards and by rotating the spring by 180 degrees, you get a clamp that pinches right at the tip so that you can apply pressure where you chose to. Adding an elastic band increases the pressure, and I tend to give the tip an extra squeeze with my fingers too when I apply the clamp.

Here are a couple of other styles of lining clamp, spotted at the Oberlin Violinmakers Workshop. The top ones are plastic laboratory hose clamps.  the lower ones are some nicely modified push-style wooden clothes pegs,  the red heads are designated for the tight corner radius.  Both of the styles will tend to pinch the lining at the top edge of the rib, not down near the mold where the pressure is most needed.  Also they are slow to use, since they need screwing both to apply and to remove them.

So, my lining clamp advice: Get some C74’s, save yourself some time and money,  and charge your client a little extra because you are using specialized technical equipment.