David Beard

How did this get on a violin making forum? Sure there's sone minor degree of topic overlap, but really? You're in the wrong aisle dude.

Looks like hand or sleeve contact to me.

You do realize I'm being satirical. No matter how bad the violin, if you going to bother at all, then you should work very gently, and only remove the added material. You goal should be to protect all the original varnish. Once the added material is cleared, then retouch the original varnish minimally, but as need. DO NOT use any agressive abrasion of any kind. DO NOT cut through the original varnish or color. DO NOT cut into the wood at all. If you don't think it a violin at all, if it's the worst kind of factory trash student violin, then ok. Grind away at the wood and make a lamp out of the thing. Who cares. But if you see it as a violin of any merit at all, then have some respect. Do the work patiently, gently, non-destructively, and well. Or leave the poor thing as it is. Not kidding this time.

Or wire wheel?

Brillo pad? Rasp?

And I thought a Sawzall was the reccomend starting point for something like this?

I think there's fair cause to at least suspect that the PG is a Strad version/variant of the Grand model.

Spoken as if boundless greed were not the true god of our world.

Just to clarify, the above are more a modern DIY homebrew rather than very old school. In the old stuff the business end will be a bulky cast shape of bronze or similar for more heat retention (thermal mass).

Nice to have a range of sizes and types. All cut somewhat differently. I have mix of inside and outside bevels, and straight verus fingernail profiles. Also, some are actual gouges and others are the curved Nomi chisels. One could certainly work with a minimal toolkit, but it's very nice to have a rich range of tools at hand. Straight blades also have important roles in working the head.

Of course they're both important. But they don't always directly survive. Oddly, I was thinking about this before seeing this thread. I'm carving a back's arching right now. And that got me thinking. In a way, I feel the instruments identity is more wrapped up in the back. If it were a drum, this would be obvious. The top would be a replaceable and expendable drum head. The top is more directly involved in the instrument speaking. But is also more replaceable, and perhaps changable like strings. Yes. The arching and soundholes are critical. But still...

Nice!

No. Because most contagious individuals will be asymptomatic. So you must track those people down or there effectively is no quarantine at all.

Yes. China pursued containment with decent success. In the USA we aren't even testing for Corona contagious individuals, let alone actually quarantining them. Instead, we are only testing if people display a strong likelyhood of having an overt case of Covid19. Then, if they test positive, we might follow up with testing some of their contacts. This is no policy of containment. It is only a strategy to slow the rate of exposure as the virus travels into the full population. China pursued actual containment of the virus. Italy didn't. And, the US isn't.

People propose that it's just ascetic. But, we don't actually know. My bet is that it does contribute some to a successful instrument.