Copy of Stradivarius violin 3

I had acquired this violin from a customer: he went out to buy a new violin when I told him that it would cost more to fix than for him to buy a new violin.

This Stradivarius copy was in really rough shape: a cracked top plate in 3 spots, the neck angle is too low, there was a large seam separation at the bottom and many other areas, a crack in the scroll/peg box, the holes in the peg box being oversized and a few more things.

The first thing was to go at the seam separation and cracks in the top plate. The back was taken off the violin as it had already separated from the sides – this allowed access to work on the cracks on the top plate. This is the first time I had taken the back or top plate off a violin. It went well but the violin didn’t quite seem to match up when gluing it back together. It isn’t terribly off but the goal would always be to get it back exactly.

I believe this was due to the heel block, end block and all four seams where the waists meets the bouts were separated from one block or another. When it was apart, I tried to determine how it should fit and how to try to glue it back the way it should be – without a form.

After the body was back together, the body was lightly sanded and polished back up.

With trying to move forward on the violin, this is were I found that the neck angle was low and really looked at the oversized and out of round holes on the pegbox. I knew they were not right before but didn’t focus too much on the holes until I got to them. There are rings around the bigger peg holes, possibly washers but that is just a guess.

Another thing was that the nut was shimmed when I had received this instrument. The mismatch of colour from the Ebony fingerboard to the bright “wood” coloured shim under the Ebony nut draws your eyes towards that area when you look at the neck. Taking the nut off to remove the shim put the string height where it needed to be. I am not sure why it was shimmed to begin with.

The project had stopped at a point to decide whether or not it was worth finishing. The tailpiece is damaged and not usable, new pegs needed to be ordered and the bow that came with the violin was broken at the tip. Somebody used an elastic band to try to hold it together which was obviously not doing the job: the tip was still bent downwards.

Instead of cutting bushing pegs that I had ordered in, I used epoxy to fill the holes, redrilled the holes and reamed the taper into the pegbox. New Ebony pegs have been fitted with success.

I fitted my last Ebony bridge on this violin. I brought in a couple to try out but from what I understand, Ebony is not the desired material for the bridge.

The previous owner claimed to have actually been playing on this violin but looking at how I had received it. I doubt that was even true considering that there were parts missing to even make it playable as it was.

This violin did sit on the back burner for a while but it was fun to try to fix it up as best as possible. Experience points earned. I think it sounds pretty good but I don’t think I would be the one to make that judgement.