duane88

Brad gave an opinion. Pegs can seldom be repaired. It should just be replaced.

Bridges are portable, and although you may be able to identify who cut the bridge, that won't tell you who made the violin or where it is from, just who the last person to cut a bridge for the instrument was. Also, without pictures, which you will have to make more posts in order to be able to show us, there isn't really much to say.

Yes, but if you saw this on a fine bow, or it was revealed to you by a shop, would you pay full price for the bow, or would you be wary? I don't quite get nearly 2 pages of is it or isn't it. It's a crack, and regardless how it happened, heating and trying to bend that stick would be a mistake. It is a crack.

Here's #7!

The older and more important the instrument, the less it seems to damage the selling price. I believe that if not all, nearly all of the Strad Celli have patches in the backs. Top cracks are a bit different, and Ellis told me 0-30%-0% being invisible, 30% if you can see it across the room. Post cracks or post patches in a top don't really bother me unless the top is too thin. If the crack is poorly repaired, the eventual re-repair has to be considered in the selling price. It used to be a straight 50% depreciation for a back crack.

Lots of good American violins available in that price range, living and dead. A good Markneukirchen fiddle goes for more than that, excellent Mirecourt examples to be found. As Jeffrey said, good and bad instruments have been made just about everywhere. Look for a violin, not a country. At the 5k price point, it is a tool of your trade, not an investment. That said, American violins sometimes represent a tremendous deal just because they are American, as evidenced by some of the comments posted in this thread.

I don't think that they asked a violin maker about what we use before making that plane. I have of the 102s as well.

wood does what wood will do. I believe that in Retford's book he suggests that anyone who guarantees the camber of a bow from day to day is foolish.

Not much that you can do with it. I have a very Hi-Tech friend who wraps these with a carbon fiber filament. The only traditional thing that could be done is to wrap it with thread and saturate that with glue. You probably shouldn't do anything to it. Don't ever let anyone attempt to straighten or camber the bow. When it opens up, you retire the bow.

I clean the room that I am going to be varnishing in a couple of days before and crank up a HEPA filter unit that i have. The hope is that if I can minimize the dust in the room before I start that there will be less to deal with after I get going. I leave the HEPA running while the varnish is drying. I also have a HEPA filter on the light box, which is much like the grow tent that avandesande shows.

Because then you have a neck that is too long, a heel that is too small and the only real repair, if you visit your local violin maker/shop is to graft a neck to get the neck and heel correct, and that's expensive. We have numbers that have been arrived at over time and experience. I'd just move the board down to 130 if it were 133. I'd call it Defensive Luthiere. If it goes through a decent shop, I can't imagine them taking on a consignment with a 133 neck. You'd want to fix that, because if it goes out on trial and another shop looks at it, they will point all of these things out, perh

I agree, but how many Itallian fiddles made by non-professional makers have these issues! If it's from Italy, it's expensive and quaint, if it's something else, it's a liability. My point is finish this one and make a list of what to not do on the next one and move on, but making a longer neck to compensate for a shorter mensur makes the instrument a mess of messes that is difficult to play in tune and the player can't quite figure out why.

The aged owner's parents purchased this from Mr. Carlisle for him as a child:

Yes, you st the f-holes too low. Options: 1-make a new top. 2-Go forward with this top. If 1, then you can solve this probelm. If 2, making a longer neck to compensate for a shorter mensur is creating a different set of issues. I say go on with this top, make a neck of 130, and add this to the list of things to not do on the next instrument.

fill in the set of notches at 202, put new ones higher up, make a neck of 130 and call it a Guad copy! It's OK. many have done this sort of thing. Put the bridge where it belongs, make a neck of 130, and don't compound the problem by making a neck that is too long.