Brad Dorsey

There's no reason not to spray, paint or drool anything on it. Or leave it as it is. It has reached a terminal state of degradation.

No. It's a cheap violin, badly damaged and insulted. Many people would say that burning it for heat is the best use for it. Do whatever you want, guilt-free.

Yes.

Are you trying to tell me that I need to drink more beer to do this right?

I cannot find the maker listed anywhere. To me the workmanship looks a lot better than what I typically see in the products of untrained amateur American makers. This guy knew what he was doing.

Jacob, Thank you for your thoughtful response. Based on my experience with this fixture, I think that your reservations are unwarranted: Not entirely neglected. As I said, there was a hole in the plywood under the crack being glued so that I could push the two sides up or down with my fingers while feeling the outside to see if the sides of the crack were in register. I was able to control the pushing together quite precisely by how far in I pushed the wedges. I pushed the two sides of the crack together with my hands, and then I inserted the wedges only far enough to hold the movable clamping block in the same position. I always worry about gluing time with hot glue. I had both pieces of the top on the clamping fixture with the crack separated by about a quarter inch when I applied the glue. I estimate that I had the crack together and aligned and the clamping wedges in place about ten seconds later. This was not an attempt to create a universal fixture. I can re-use the plywood, but the concave counterparts will have to be custom made for any other instrument I might try this method on.

This is a good point that I left out. In my trial clamping I found that the edge did tend to rise off the plywood right at the neck cut-out. So I put one clamp there to hold it down when I glued it.. You probably could do this, but I decided I'd rather clamp it quickly with the wedges, set it aside for the glue to dry and move on to something else.

I have a violin in for repair now with a top that came off in two pieces, due to a long crack along the finger board and a wing crack. To glue and clamp the pieces back together, I used a method that I devised and that I have used several times. I set the top on a flat piece of plywood to maintain the plane of the rim. I immobilized the larger piece by cutting three counterparts from scrap wood to fit the bouts and screwing them to the plywood. I cut a movable counterpart to fit the smaller piece and made two small wedges to provide gentle clamping force. I cut a hole in the plywood under the crack to be glued so that I could have access from below to push the sides of the crack into alignment if necessary. I am pleased with the result. The sides of the crack are perfectly aligned, and I had good control of the procedure. Is this a standard method for dealing with this type of broken top? Does anyone have any suggestions or refinements that might be useful the next time I do this?

Your bows could require more than lubrication. It sounds like the eyelets might be screwed too far into the frogs, or the screw holes in the sticks might be mis-aligned. If you really want to find out what's wrong, take them to a bow technician.

After looking at a few internet videos on the product, I can see how Gorilla “brush & nozzle” super glue could be useful in some situations. But I often want one small drop of glue placed very precisely. For this, a bit of Teflon tubing stuck in the nozzle of my glue bottle will work better.

That's exactly what I've been doing. Sometimes the tubing is only clogged at the outer end, so I cut the end off, sometimes I can clear the clog by inserting a piece of wire (guitar string) into the tubing and sometimes I replace the tubing. By using the tubing like this, I can now use a whole bottle of glue. Problem solved.

If you didn't, it's still legally yours. Is there any way you can resolve this uncertainty?

The only information I have on him is what I got on this forum from Glen. Are you going to play it?

Use some hide glue. It will add protein and make a meal that will really stick to your ribs.

You might have to cut away some of the white wood visible in your picture on the upper side of the crack. It looks like it's overlapping the lower side, preventing the two sides from re-aligning.