Since my last update was the tootiest, ever! It feels great to go back to what this blog is all about, namely creativity! This week I finished my second repair work on a violin that's been in my family for some years. And as always there is a story, but you know that by now, eh!
When I spoke to my father yesterday he told me that the violin was his fathers (my grand father) and that he got it from my fathers grand father, that would be my great grand father on my fathers side. He was a farmer outside of Lidköping. But if he bought it or built it or got it some other way, we don't know. We estimate that it might have been built in the beginning of the 20th century, maybe in the 1910s or 1920s. But we don't know, it might be older... It's a good thing I didn't know that! I thought that it was built much later, maybe in the 50s or 60s! We don't know who has built it, there is no note inside it. Since it doesn't have that, you might come to the conclusion that it's an amateur that built it. But since the sound is so great, one might think that it is professional builder. My violin teacher loved this violin, and he would know!
So it was in my grand fathers care, and then my father got it, I think my big brother played on it as well, and since some time I have it in my care. Funny thing is that I don't really play the violin, I know the scales, and how to set it up and tune it. Every know and then I pick it up and tune it and play some scales and that's it! But all along the years when I have moved to new places I have always brought this violin.
So what was this repair about? In short:
I mended a crack in the belly.
Glued the belly back on to the ribs.
The end rest was loose, so I glued it back.
Put another purfling where the old had loosened.
Exchanged a tuning peg, and cut the ends of the pegs.
Repositioned the sound post.
Exchanged the tail gut.
I also took away three fine tuning devices.
I got great help from Nisse who is the go-to-guy when I build violins! He knows it all!
I've taken photos along the repair to show you what I have done.
Here it is in all it's glory, before the work begun.
Here you see the old tail gut.
The four fine tuning devices.
Here I've taken away the chin rest. And as you see the purfling was loose and also the end rest. And the belly was loose from the ribs.
Here we've glued it all in to place. In mending the crack I took away the old glue that the former repairer put in to the crack. I think that was how they repaired it, they just put glue in the crack. To put it together as tightly as possible I loosened the belly from the ribs all along the crack, and then we glued it together. And after that we glued the belly on to the ribs. In taking away the old glue one has to put water on it and when it solves, you take it away, but since you don't want water all over the violin, you have to apply it one water drop at a time!
In looking at this part of the instrument I think the back has loosened from the ribs, but I'm going to examine this further... I noticed this today, when I'm writing this update...
As you see here it's quite easy to tell the old and new purfling from one another... Well quite frankly I just took the purfling that we had at the violin club. But it has the right width so it fits like a glove, even if it's a bit funny on the eyes... I don't even know if you can buy purfling like the old one.
Just to state the obvious, if this instrument had belonged to someone else I would've gotten the right looking purfling! But since I'm the owner of this instrument I don't mind that it looks mended, it just shows that it's an old instrument that's been around for some time.
Here you see how much the new purfling shows when you have the chin rest on! Here I thought I was done, but I wasn't...
...because one can't have tuning pegs that looks like this! I had to exchange the upper one because it's gotten to short, and I also cut the end of the pegs.
Much nicer pegs!
The mended crack, and less fine tuning devices.
The new tail gut and the new purfling. I must say that the new tail gut looks much better than the old one!
When I was done with it, I tuned it and played some scales...
And that's it for now, later today I'm going to put the fifth coat of varnish on the violin that I'm varnishing.
I must say that I've enjoyed the repair work so far, I really like to mend the instruments and put them back to their glory, without hurting it further! I don't know when I'm going to get to mend another instrument, but I hope it won't take too long.
Maybe I'm over thinking this but I like the fact that I get to work with an instrument that a craftsman has put together way back in history. Maybe it's the craft of it all that's gotten a hold of me, I don't think I can really explain what I mean. When I can, I will post it here! Or maybe it's just something you are not meant to explain... And with that philosophy in mind, I leave you for now.
Take care!
