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Showing results for tags 'white violin'.
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Hi folks, I bought a 16-1/2" unfinished "white" viola from a Chinese seller on eBay over a year ago. I bought it because I loved the look of the tight grained spruce top, the beautiful flamed maple on the back, and especially the fancy inlay. I have never tried any kind of project like this before, but after receiving it I realized that I had gotten something that was going to be more work than I bargained for. The fingerboard had a big hump in the middle of it. I double checked that it wasn't just warped, but no, the bottom was flat and the just the top had a big convex hump in it. I put it in the closet and decided to buy a much cheaper white violin to practice on and learn from before risking my luck on this nicer project. So now, over a year later, I took it out to see about fixing the hump and I noticed something I had not seen before: the fingerboard also has a long crack in it. I hoped that it was just cosmetic and I started aggressively sanding down the hump. But the crack is still there even after removing almost 1.5mm of thickness. I had saved the eBay listing photos when I bought it, and I now see that they cleverly avoided any view of this section of the fingerboard. I bet "Master Song and his 2 right hand apprentices" knew all about the hump and the crack in it - and that is how it ended up as a DIY "white" viola on eBay rather than a finished instrument... Is there a way to fix it? Fill it with CA glue? Would I be better off to remove it and put a better quality piece on? I emailed the seller asking if it was just "tack glued" and he replied, "No, it be well glued." So that solution won't be easy. Maybe I should just ignore it?
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Hi there. First of all, I live in the Western-Cape of South-Africa, and the only violins that being sold here by music shops is cheap chinese violins, or like some people like to call them, VSO's (Violin-sounding objects). I'm currently learning violin restoration by myself, (so much easier with all the resources available on the internet, and since there are no violin making schools in SA). So here is my question. I want to try to introduce better, yet affordable violins to the many, many violin beginners that I hear of over here every day. I sell old violins that I buy/repair already, but beginners aren't looking for that. I always hear my violin teacher saying how kids struggle to get even a decent sound out of the violins (The VSO's), or even a decent volume, and believe me, Ive played on some of those violins and it is indeed true. Now I know people might say "a bad worksman blames his tools" but with better tools, a worksman can do much better work. So what I want to do, is buy white violins, that are available on Ebay for example. I know you can buy better white violins at other places, but I have to keep this affordable for beginning players. What I plan on doing then is maybe do some final scraping/thinning of the plates if that was done poorly, do a proper set-up, and apply some varnish that is not so thick that a spear wont even be able to penetrate it. Have anyone tried this yet? What sound quality can I expect from these violins then? Will there be enough of a difference that people will buy these, rather than cheap violins at music shops? Here is a link to one violin, for example, http://www.ebay.com/itm/BEGINNER-MAKE-A-VIOLIN-WOOD-PROJECT-KIT-with-ebony-pegs-/200916112585?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item2ec78894c9 Thank You for taking time to read. Hope to hear from you guys soon. -Kallie
