Another Violin Rescue

This came to me from a teacher at my kid’s school. He asked if I would consider fixing it for him. This project is my tribute to teachers – thank you all teachers for helping develop our children into responsible, respectful and successful young adults. As parents, we could never do it alone without the dedication of good teachers, who serve as additional role models.

What follows below is the pictorial transition from broken to unbroken. If you’ve read my other posts, you’ll know that I usually try to use reclaimed parts and pieces in my restorations. This one is no different. To cleat the breaks I used two sources of wood: bits of cedar that were salvaged from my previous Almansa project (fitting since that Almansa was a school’s guitar), and pieces of old reclaimed spruce siding that I sanded down paper thin. It was the only way I could get something flexible enough to contour one portion of the violin top. You’ll see as we go.

First looks.
The top was completely split and hanging on only by a hint of glue left around the binding edge.
Step one fix broken side at the neck block.
Step 2. Fix the crack in the back.
Cleat glued and held in place with magnets.
Step 3: start rebuilding the top. This portion I used thicker pieces of wood near the top because I was spanning three cracks, and because near the neck block it doesn’t need to resonate as much anyway. Traded wood flexibility for structural stability in this area.
Step 4: reattach broken pieces. The top bout you can see the long and very thin piece of spruce siding I used. There is lots of contour there and this was the only way to make it solid. That piece of spruce is about the thickness of a standard filing folder.
Reassemble with hide glue, clamps and binding tape.

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