Monthly Archives: April 2024

This violin came in because it needed some retouch around the edges and also because the endpin was putting up, which the owner had spotted (a good thing to check for every so often!) However I also spotted that the rib was pulling away from the back plate, meaning that either it has come unglued from the bottom block or the block itself wasn’t properly seated. This can happen gradually anywhere on the instrument as the wood shrinks, but in the bottom block area there is the additional tension from the tailpiece to worry about. Luckily there was enough “wiggle room” to move the rib/block in and regain the overhang and gluing surface by balancing it out with other areas where the overhang was more than it needed to be. I also fitted a new soundpost because the old one wasn’t a brilliant fit.

This violin came in because the A string had started to cut into the bridge resulting in the string being hard to bow on its own. I examined the instrument and realised the reason was that a rather unscrupulous music shop had fitted guitar strings for the A and E strings, resulting in a string which was very high tension and acting like a cheesewire on the bridge. It could have been possible to salvage the old bridge, however it was not a very high quality one so we decided it made sense to fit a new bridge. However the neck angle was also very shallow, so after consultation we decided to do a neck angle reset first, rather than made a new bridge which would only need replacing again once the neck reset happened. I also fitted a new soundpost and re-glued a loose seam in the bottom bout, as well as fitting a new set of (violin!) strings and tidying up the nut a bit,

This violin came in for a new soundpost after having been unused for a bit. When I strung it up I realised that the nut slots were also too deep so the strings were buzzing, but I was able to shim it up to get the extra height needed.

This violin came in for a string-up and some soundpost tweaks after having sat unplayed for a while. We also decided it made sense to fit a new tailpiece with built in fine-tuners rather than having 4 external ones.