The Worst Violin Repairs Ever

[Rmueller9]

I have three examples that are hard to beat. But, try your best!!!!!

    Rich

1. c. 1800 Italian Violin. With this repair, the table will never cave in.

2. If you can’t use a soundpost setter, do something creative.

3. The Wood Doctor, Perth Amboy, NJ. Destroyed instruments for 45 years

[Rmueller9]

Pictures are in reverse order

[duane88]

I had an amateur repair person from up in BC bring me an Italian violin, branded, "Made in Italy" on the button. The entire top was slightly less than 2mm... I suggested a chest patch as a start and see if we could make that work. Nope. He brought it back a month later to show me his handy-work. He had found 1mm thick, adhesive backed, wood veneer-as in edge banding for your kitchen cabinets-and had glued those in place, to make the top an acceptable 3mm. To make sure that they stayed, he bled super thin CA in between each joint so as to cause it to wick under each strip.

Endless iterations, especially by Engineers, of butchery. And more often than not, to my never ending surprise, they seem to sound pretty darn good, in spite of the insults inflicted upon them.

Now let me tell you about the bass with 86 screws on top, and 86 screws on the back, flathead screws, all in alignment, and 1 extra, countersunk into the top to hold the soundpost in place...

[chiaroscuro_violins]

/

[Violadamore]

1 hour ago, chiaroscuro_violins said:

Explain this!  It's about 3 mm thick (so the plate measures roughly 6).  There is no evidence that the plate was too thin or experienced any deformation.  There is no evidence of a soundpost crack.  I intend to remove it.  

IMHO, something was going wrong with the center joint, and this was the panicked reaction.  The sloppy gluing and the ubiquitous hanging chips/curls are telling us something here, but I'm not sure what, besides someone was in a hellacious hurry. 

4 hours ago, Rmueller9 said:

I have three examples that are hard to beat. But, try your best!!!!!

    Rich

1. c. 1800 Italian Violin. With this repair, the table will never cave in.

2. If you can’t use a soundpost setter, do something creative.

3. The Wood Doctor, Perth Amboy, NJ. Destroyed instruments for 45 years

In the fiddles I've worked on, I have not yet seen anything to match these exemplars of bizarre and excremental procedure.  Thank God.......... 

 

[chiaroscuro_violins]

/

[jezzupe]

3 hours ago, Violadamore said:

IMHO, something was going wrong with the center joint, and this was the panicked reaction.  The sloppy gluing and the ubiquitous hanging chips/curls are telling us something here, but I'm not sure what, besides someone was in a hellacious hurry. 

In the fiddles I've worked on, I have not yet seen anything to match these exemplars of bizarre and excremental procedure.  Thank God.......... 

 

We were tired, we wanted to go home, we called the boss and told him we ran out of shims so we couldn't finish the windows

"Jimmy quick, he's coming where can we hide this last shim?"...

[PaganiniGuitar]

I’m willing to bet most of those horrible repairs (minus the string method for moving around the post) were done by YES… violin luthiers or repairers. Ahem….

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

I’m willing to bet most of those horrible repairs (minus the string method for moving around the post) were done by YES… violin luthiers or repairers. Ahem….

Home-brewed wannabe geetaar fixers, more likely.

[PaganiniGuitar]

16 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Home-brewed wannabe geetaar fixers, more likely.

 Nice jab but most guitar luthiers are not into violins or repairs/restorations of those instruments and if they are amatuer wannabes they would have done a hell of a lot better than what I see in those horrible repairs shown! The unsuspecting customers who took their instruments to repair had no idea of the horror until another repair was done!

[jacobsaunders]

2 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

I’m willing to bet most of those horrible repairs (minus the string method for moving around the post) were done by YES… violin luthiers or repairers. Ahem….

A contention with no basis in fact or knowledge

[Strad O Various Jr.]

They don't call them hacks for nothing!

[David Burgess]

43 minutes ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

 The unsuspecting customers who took their instruments to repair had no idea of the horror until another repair was done!

Nope, there are no violin repair establishments doing work that bad. We shoot 'em as fast as they crop up.

[PaganiniGuitar]

5 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

A contention with no basis in fact or knowledge

Yes there is basis for the facts are laid before us in those photos. The real facts are that whom ever took these instruments to RMueller to repair would hopefully know who did the prior repairs and surely there would be some label inserted somewhere of the shop that did this work. No need to feel thin skinned about it as I would suspect no violin luthier or restoration expert on these boards would produce those results.

I’m not an amatuer restorer or the like but I know my way around wood and guitars. My avatar is that I’m a classically trained guitarist and not some hack! I’ve only started playing the violin only but 4 years ago… but I collect the occasional rare or new consignment violin for my spouse who is the true violinist in the family.

 

[uncle duke]

2 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

 I’ve only started playing the violin only but 4 years ago…

How far have you progressed tune wise?

About the repairs- easily could of been done by a dad, grandpa, auto mechanic or even a school shop teacher whom may of had access to a Wake or Heron-Allen repair chapter with-in the book.

[PaganiniGuitar]

1 hour ago, uncle duke said:

How far have you progressed tune wise?

About the repairs…

Well doing very nicely. Fortunately for me I was born with perfect pitch so music was early for me. My father was a pianist so all in the family had to take the ‘required’ lessons and for me I was at age 4 . I started guitar at 11 years old and took to it all through my life but wasn’t until I met my violinist spouse that I started to get interest in her playing the violin. Learning the fingerboard took a little effort but hearing the notes was easy so I’m at least playing with some pleasure with the help of my better half. No MET recitals for me… I’m happy seeing my wife in that chair.

[The Violin Beautiful]

I have two violins in the shop that were savaged by the same person. I have been putting off dealing with them as much as possible. 

[Rothwein]

^^Oh, dear... @The Violin Beautiful, my step-brother and step-sister (Stiefgeschwister?) are holding down the fort in your area.

@PaganiniGuitarCongratulations! Welcome to Maestronet, where the orchestra's roadies unwind. 

[jacobsaunders]

11 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

Yes there is basis for the facts are laid before us in those photos. The real facts are that whom ever took these instruments to RMueller to repair would hopefully know who did the prior repairs and surely there would be some label inserted somewhere of the shop that did this work.

 

Since you don’t know who perpetrated this work, your slurs have no basis in fact or knowledge

[nathan slobodkin]

21 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

I’m willing to bet most of those horrible repairs (minus the string method for moving around the post) were done by YES… violin luthiers or repairers. Ahem….

Repairing a violin does not make one a violin restorer any more than delivering a baby makes one an obstetrician.

While there are exceptions to every rule can’t think of anyone I have ever met whom I would call a luthier or violin repairer who was not trained to some extent and no one with any training could possibly do the repairs shown by the OP.

21 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

[PaganiniGuitar]

11 hours ago, Rothwein said:

@PaganiniGuitarCongratulations! Welcome to Maestronet, where the orchestra's roadies unwind. 

Thank you for your kind words! Even roadies have something to offer, but alas no roadie here except following perhaps my spouse at concerts?

Most forums have ‘introduce yourself’ threads where one can post an introduction regarding who you are, skills, life’s work, etc. if one wishes to know who is speaking and why one should listen to them with any degree of wisdom, etc. As such we must take for granted who is posting, makes for foolishness in replies, and all the things that make it sour for newcomers to continue to want to stay onboard these forums.

[Jeffrey Holmes]

4 hours ago, PaganiniGuitar said:

Most forums have ‘introduce yourself’ threads where one can post an introduction regarding who you are, skills, life’s work, etc. if one wishes to know who is speaking and why one should listen to them with any degree of wisdom, etc. As such we must take for granted who is posting, makes for foolishness in replies, and all the things that make it sour for newcomers to continue to want to stay onboard these forums.

There is space in the profile area if one wishes to mention their interests or experience... and a good number of us are known in the field and/or have websites... as for the rest, it really doesn't take long to figure out where a member is "at"... and a question or two might help if observation isn't fruitful.

Welcome to the board!  

[Rmueller9]

I did this restoration for someone with a tight budget. Hole through the table soundpost area. Take a gouge and shave wood from the interior for outside inlays. Put a soundpost patch in. Inlay ovals from the extracted wood from the interior. Do the touchup(the hardest part). 

[KB_Smith]

I don't repair violins and have no expertise in any of the things discussed in this thread.  I just own a couple violins and struggle learning to play them.  But I feel compelled to commend Rmeuller9 for this beautiful repair.  It's hard to believe you can patch an actual hole through the table with such excellent results.  I also wonder how you can match the color and texture of the varnish so perfectly?  Did you re-varnish the entire table?  I would not have expected to find this example of really excellent repair work in a thread titled "The Worst Violin Repairs Ever."  

It is also so interesting to watch how the conversation wanders around in these threads.  If you follow one thread long enough, it can morph to an entirely different discussion.  

[khunsakee]

On 7/24/2021 at 7:02 PM, Rmueller9 said:

I have three examples that are hard to beat. But, try your best!!!!!

    Rich

1. c. 1800 Italian Violin. With this repair, the table will never cave in.

2. If you can’t use a soundpost setter, do something creative.

3. The Wood Doctor, Perth Amboy, NJ. Destroyed instruments for 45 years

These repairs make me feel like a savant.

I have always loved the beauty of wood and, was reasonably adept at woodworking. Then, I fell in love with the beauty of the luthiers art and thought, "Hey, I'd like to do that." So, In 2010, I was practicing on a, throw away 3/4 violin top. I took out the integral bass bar, put in a new one, did what I thought was an acceptable sound post patch(about 2 weeks later learned how sound post patches should be done,) threw in some patches(?) for the blocks and wing-crack, some tiny, tiny, cleats(from old cedar shingles), extracted and applied a solution from amber pea gravel, and learned that I'd never, ever, be able to do any actual repairs, without in-person instruction. A few years later, sudden-onset hearing loss accompanied by tinnitus, dashed any thoughts of a second career of instrument repair. You can't fix a musical instrument with 3 or 4 different ring tones playing, constantly, in your head.

Until, I saw the photos, above, I was too ashamed to show anyone what I had done: