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Posted: **Sat Jun 18, 2022 8:20 am**

Along with the guitar, my clients brought a very old violin for me to check. I know it was made between 1877-1909. The company name changed in 1910 and they quit handling instruments.

I don't know anything about violins and I told them I'd take a look, but if there was anything I didn't understand, I'd find a luthier that worked exclusively on them. I won't do anything in which I'm unqualified.

It's actually in really nice shape and it's really beautiful. It's made from solid curly maple.

I love the neck! You can see that this violin was loved and played. The finish is worn off, leaving the silky beautiful curly maple.

I did research and violins are very simple instruments. They were concerned about the bridge laying in the case. Bridges are not glued on violins, so it's a matter of placement. There was a piece of dowel rattling around in it.

Violins have sound posts, which is a dowel that's placed between the back and top, at the violins highest point. This isn't glued either. It's friction fit.

I found 2 closed cracks on the top. I fixed the cracks by placing working hide glue/water, into the cracks, then I put a cleat on each. I use a tool based on the stewmac crack tool. I made 2 of them. I used them to place and hold the cleats until they were glued.

Before working the glue into the cracks, I used wood bleach in the cracks to clean dirt. Cracks will show more when dirty.

The last thing I'll do is use a chemical to melt the finish into the cracks. It almost makes them disappear. This way, there will only he original finish on the violin.

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Posted: **Sun Jun 19, 2022 11:49 am**

Very cool.
I'm considering making a violin right now.
Kit or scratch? I have 3 grand daughters who play and thought I might be neat to do. But I may be crazy.

Posted: **Sun Jun 19, 2022 5:22 pm**

Kevin, in all honesty, this violin is very simple. It has 1 brace on the top, a bass bar. It has the sound post. That's about it on the inside. I think the hardest part will be creating the arches on the top and bottom. I suppose it's like archtop guitars: they're either pressed into shape, or carved.

Posted: **Sun Jun 26, 2022 2:29 pm**

Building a decent violin from scratch can be a very daunting experience, as anybody trained in the art can tell you. The top must be carved to a variety of thicknesses, depending on where you're measuring it, to achieve the best tonality. (Same for the back, although that doesn't seem to be as critical.) You'll also need a mold for assembling the body, and an assortment of specialized tools for things like fitting the bridge and the sound post. If you're really hard-core, you'll also need a tool for tapering tuning pegs, although most people buy them ready-made.

There are a number of books on violin building, which gives you an idea of what's involved. Believe me, it's a lot more complicated than building a guitar or mandolin.

Of course, you can make a violin without all these things. It won't have the sound of a well-made violin, but you can play it. I came across a book in my library on building square-body violins and cellos that utilized a basic tool kit. I can't remember the name of it, though, and a search of the library's web site has failed to turn it up, so it might have been pulled from the shelf.

Stew-Mac makes a kit with all the serious stuff already done for you... you have to glue it together, apply the finish, and string it up. And there's a selection of kits on the International Violin web site:

https://www.internationalviolin.com/Sho ... s-and-kits

Posted: **Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:53 pm**

I'm not building a violin and i dont plan on building one. I simply took care of the cracks and I'm resetting the sound post. I just received the special sound post tool in the mail. I know where to set it and how.

Thank you for the information. It's always good to have solid information about the instruments in which we work.

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2022 4:41 pm**

Diane Kauffmds wrote: ↑Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:53 pm I'm not building a violin and i dont plan on building one. I simply took care of the cracks and I'm resetting the sound post.

I didn't think you were. But the advice was directed to Kevin and anybody else who wants to build one from a kit.

I I just received the special sound post tool in the mail. I know where to set it and how.

And then the adventure begins! If it's a kit you've just built, you don't really know where to place the sound post until you string it up and play it, and then slack the strings to relieve pressure on the bridge, and move the sound post an incremental amount, tighten the strings, and then play it again to see what the difference is and if you made the tone better or worse, and then loosen the strings and either move it back to where it was or move it somewhere else...

Of course, with the old violin you've got, the best bet is to place the sound exactly where it was before, on the theory that somebody else has done all the fiddling with it (pun intended) and determined the optimum position for it. All you have to do is mind how the bevels at each end of the sound post match up with the top and bottom plates.

I guess I never wrote about the experience on this forum, but I was able to get a Stew-Mac violin kit at a discount and built it. After realizing that I couldn't play it right-handed, I decided to convert it into a left-handed one. So I took the top off, switched the position of the sound post and bass bar, and re-assembled it. After I made a new bridge and nut for it and re-strung it, I tried it out and found that you have to switch the peg orientation, too, so I filled the holes, re-drilled them, and reamed them out to accommodate the reversed position. Now the fiddle is a true mirror image of a right-handed violin.

It was a bitch to find a teacher who would teach me left-handed (there's a huge prejudice against lefties in the violin world), but I found Linda Keen, who has a great reputation in these parts. She said that the quality of the instrument was consistent with the better student models she's had experience with.

I gave it my best shot, but found that the violin wasn't the instrument for me. It's sitting in its case on the top of the book-case in my bedroom. If anybody wants a leftie violin, please let me know.

As I posted earlier, the whole ordeal of building the fiddle and learning to play it can be found here:

http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2018/08/ge ... iolin.html

Posted: **Mon Jun 27, 2022 5:12 pm**

JLT wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 4:41 pm
Diane Kauffmds wrote: ↑Sun Jun 26, 2022 3:53 pm I'm not building a violin and i dont plan on building one. I simply took care of the cracks and I'm resetting the sound post.
I didn't think you were. But the advice was directed to Kevin and anybody else who wants to build one from a kit.

I I just received the special sound post tool in the mail. I know where to set it and how.
And then the adventure begins! If it's a kit you've just built, you don't really know where to place the sound post until you string it up and play it, and then slack the strings to relieve pressure on the bridge, and move the sound post an incremental amount, tighten the strings, and then play it again to see what the difference is and if you made the tone better or worse, and then loosen the strings and either move it back to where it was or move it somewhere else...

Of course, with the old violin you've got, the best bet is to place the sound exactly where it was before, on the theory that somebody else has done all the fiddling with it (pun intended) and determined the optimum position for it. All you have to do is mind how the bevels at each end of the sound post match up with the top and bottom plates.

I guess I never wrote about the experience on this forum, but I was able to get a Stew-Mac violin kit at a discount and built it. After realizing that I couldn't play it right-handed, I decided to convert it into a left-handed one. So I took the top off, switched the position of the sound post and bass bar, and re-assembled it. After I made a new bridge and nut for it and re-strung it, I tried it out and found that you have to switch the peg orientation, too, so I filled the holes, re-drilled them, and reamed them out to accommodate the reversed position. Now the fiddle is a true mirror image of a right-handed violin.

It was a bitch to find a teacher who would teach me left-handed (there's a huge prejudice against lefties in the violin world), but I found Linda Keen, who has a great reputation in these parts. She said that the quality of the instrument was consistent with the better student models she's had experience with.

I gave it my best shot, but found that the violin wasn't the instrument for me. It's sitting in its case on the top of the book-case in my bedroom. If anybody wants a leftie violin, please let me know.

As I posted earlier, the whole ordeal of building the fiddle and learning to play it can be found here:

http://jayeltee.blogspot.com/2018/08/ge ... iolin.html

The information you left was excellent. Thank you for posting it. I saw an excellent tutorial on setting a sound post. I'm aiming for the original position, but we'll see how it sounds. I saw the slant on each end and I had it lined up correctly. I got the post set a couple of times, but when I tried to correct it so it was perf ectly. perpendicular, it fell. I made a homemade tool, but it lacked the proper angles needed to move the post. Instead of getting frustrated, I ordered the tool.

I'm too busy to even think about something like a violin. I drew up plans for a mountain dulcimer several years ago. I have the wood sitting in my shop. I just don't have the time. But I've decided that I'd get it made this year, come hell or high water.

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100+ year old Violin

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