The Violin Beautiful

I’d spread more than 2 mm for a Belgian bridge. I do more than that for a French bridge, and those don’t spread as much. I’ve worked on a couple 18th century English cellos that had a rather extreme cross arch in the middle. Because of that shape, a Belgian bridge would just keep spreading and spreading as gravity encouraged the legs to slide down the curve. I addressed the problem by cutting French bridges instead.

It does say on the website that Knilling pegs are required with the tailpiece and that they’re included in the price. I don’t see an explanation. They do have some promotional videos linked but I haven’t watched them. It appears that the tailpiece is designed to offer afterlength adjustment for each string individually by milling a channel into each string area and installing sliding frets instead of having one that fits across the whole tailpiece. So far this is the only design I’ve seen that suggests a way to tune afterlength for all four strings instead of just one, but that isn’t any guarantee of superiority. I’d like to try one against a regular tailpiece on a setup, but I can’t justify that expense. If a customer brings one in I’ll try it out of curiosity.

I would consider wood type in fittings an aesthetic choice primarily. I do think the density of the wood has an impact, but it’s very small in comparison with the impact that other adjustments make. I like @Jeffrey Holmes’s point about the importance of the functional considerations in construction. I like the look of old boxwood fittings, but I don’t like the faux boxwood fittings that are overly soft and prone to failure under load. I’ve played violins with titanium, plastic, steel, horn, and ivory fittings. I don’t think the choice of tailpiece was a significant factor (unless it was a weird design). It probably did have some small impact, but it would be hard to isolate if anything else in the setup changed. At the first VSA convention I attended there was someone presenting and selling tailpieces that came with a movable brass weight that could be slid along a channel routed into the underside of a tailpiece for adjustment purposes. I’ve also seen a tailpiece design patented by a maker that has a hollow cavity inside for acoustic purposes. Neither tailpiece design has revolutionized the setup business.

I’ve seen bars set in way too far on a lot of instruments, apparently done intentionally (or with complete disregard to its placement). It doesn’t work well because huge sacrifices have to be made in the setup. Because it’s an internal part, its importance is often forgotten (unfortunately even by some makers!). Although it’s frustrating to have to take the top off, this is a case where it’s definitely worth doing so. Especially with extra wide ffs, the disparity is such that you can’t get enough out of it as is without addressing the bar. If you put a bridge on that’s narrower than a typical violin bridge, it’ll look rather odd. It’s one thing if you can justify that by pointing out that you’re working with unusually close eyes, but that’s the opposite of your issue. Structurally speaking, I don’t think it’s great for the arching to have a bar/bridge/post out of line. One way to think about it that’s a bit mercenary yet realistic: if you don’t put the bar in a good spot, eventually someone else will do so if the instrument is considered valuable enough to warrant that attention. You never know how someone else will do the job, so you might have a better chance preventing a hatchet job by correcting the bar yourself so that at least it leaves your hands with the best work you can offer. The excitement of nearing completion can overpower the attention to fine detail, but with so much work put in already, it would be a shame to leave this element uncorrected.

There were high end violins coming into America even before its independence from England. The first fiddle competition was held in Virginia and the prize was a Cremonese violin. Thomas Jefferson was said to have something Cremonese in his collection (although no precise record exists). In the time period mentioned in the OP, there were a lot of dealers who had precious instruments. Well known shops like Lyon & Healy advertised their fine instrument collections frequently. The Wurlitzer shop was huge as well and boasted many fine instruments. There were some notable private collectors as well. At that time it was fashionable to go abroad to Europe for study, and people often brought instruments back with them. If you go through publications like Violins and Violinists, you can see the ads placed by many dealers of the time. In the DC area, the biggest shops at the time would have been Albert Moglie’s and Herman Weaver’s. Moglie came from Italy himself and knew makers, as well as doing restoration work on great instruments, including those in the Smithsonian’s collection. My great-great-grandfather bought and sold some excellent violins between 1895 and 1930. As far as how people purchased them, they did so in several ways: through travel, from players who resold them, or from shops that imported them. By that time shipping routes and railroad infrastructure were advanced enough that it was relatively easy to get things across the globe (even if not as quick as it is today). Just as now, there were a lot of wealthy collectors who sought out great instruments. Henry Ford amassed quite a collection himself for example.

I think you can use several tools like a file, a diamond stone, or a grinder, to remove the previous cutting edge and establish a new one. As I understand it, the important thing is to make the edge as uniform as you can so that the new burr will be even when turned well. A worn burr that’s been re-turned a few times is more likely to have lost some material, become jagged, or gotten uneven. Someone once told me that it was important remove all of the old burr because the steel was getting progressively weaker the more it was turned; therefore, once a touchup treatment with the burnisher wasn’t producing good results anymore, it was time to remove all the previous cutting edge and make a newer, stronger one.

I’ve seen a number of these over the years. They’re similar to the Medio Fino line, and they tend to have a lot of potential to sound nice if you’re willing to devote the time to get them back into shape. They tended to have either a dark red or a purplish varnish. This one looks more like the purple, and it may have darkened with age or heat exposure. Cleaning it up may restore some of its lustre.

I also think the mortise walls are cut in a way that doesn’t support the neck well. When fitting a neck, there are several planes on which it moves into place. My goal is always to bring them into proper alignment as early as I can so that it’s easier to shrink things down. There are methods of fitting the neck without a fingerboard, and I think the idea there is that visualization is supposed to be easier without the arched shape of the fingerboard in the way, and you can leave centerlines on the neck handle that are easy to see and align with the body’s centerline and the saddle. I was told that the neck gauge tool that International Violin sells has two pins so that you can measure the neck height with AND without the fingerboard. I don’t like this method as much as using the fingerboard. Too much can change, and think the results end up more accurate with the board at least spot glued on I would recommend correcting the mortise first by making sure everything is flat—especially the floor. Check from multiple angles (put a straight edge in diagonally as well as vertically and horizontally to look for unevenness). Recut the mortise walls once they’re straight so that the neck root can flare into them a little for a more secure fit. Then go over the neck itself again and check each surface to remove any unevenness. Be careful how you use the tools as you cut, as it’s easy to make things that aren’t straight even using flat edge tools. Check after taking a few shavings with a straightedge so things don’t go awry. A plane blade can work like a big chisel for the mortise walls.

I saw a Google AI generated description of my business that claimed I’d been operating longer than I’d been alive. I wish I’d taken a screenshot.

My standard is two hours for open seams.

When I first started using scrapers, I was taught to make only one pass along any cutting edge with moderate and consistent pressure. As it was explained to me, making multiple passes could just round the burr over more and make it uneven. Later on, a colleague and I were talking about scrapers in the shop. He showed me his setup for scrapers. He used one or occasionally two passes, but he applied almost no pressure. I tried this for myself and was amazed at how well the scraper cut after minimal pressure turning the burr, even when used for heavier work.

The shop sounds very fishy. I have to wonder if the apprentices are really making that kind of money after leaving, or whether that’s a manufactured selling point being used to get the OP to commit to the shop’s “program.” Most people, even out of violin making schools, are struggling to make that kind of money, even being employed by reputable shops. A luthier straight out of school would more likely be in the $50k range, and that’s assuming a full-time job (not all shops take on full-time staff for repair work). A lot of shops set up arrangements where employees work part time but have access to the shop to do their own making unpaid at other times. I’d also say a paid apprenticeship is a rare thing. A lot of people have to pay to be apprentices, just as you’d pay for a course or school tuition. Some shops take people on in paid positions to do grunt work and call it an apprenticeship, but it’s not really a hands-on learning experience, more the environment where the apprentice does the menial tasks and just gets to watch other people do the skilled work on occasion. The pay is usually low and the labor is not highly skilled. This is similar to the factory setup jobs, where people are paid to bang out quick and unskilled setup work as fast as possible. This setting doesn’t lead to much advancement in skill, as the goal is speed, not accuracy. There is no simple path in the violin business. The common route in America is to attend a school for making and then apply to shops to do repair work. Especially gifted school students are occasionally recruited by makers to work in their shops. There are some makers who will take apprentices on in a more traditional setting, but those apprenticeships are hard to find and they usually cost you. I don’t think there are any evening courses available. Some makers host summer workshops. There’s no easy answer, but if the OP has already moved and gotten a full time job and has his family settled in the new place as well, I would recommend interviewing at some reputable shops and explaining the situation. A rental shop that needs extra hands may have need of someone who can be taught to do repair and setup work by a more experienced luthier. Shops with big rental programs are often overwhelmed by repairs. This may be a way to earn a modest income and get some practice on smaller-scale repairs. Doing work as a contractor might allow a home workshop setup that would dovetail with another job better. Building up the tool skills and practicing techniques on these instruments can help. It sounds pessimistic to say it, but I think it’s just the reality of the business that most luthiers are trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Social media paints a very rosy picture.

A number of people use them with good results. I just found it hard to use because the blade on mine would always bend as I was cutting, making it harder to be accurate.