Vintage 3/4 Size Bienfait Violin

I just bought this in an eBay auction (archive of the orignal listing here).

From the little I have been able to find out, this was originally sold as a lower end beginner "trade" violin. One Luthier expert judges them as the equivalent of a Stentor Conservatoire (archived here). Those Stentor violins in 3/4 size sell for £269 brand new and about £170 on eBay.  

As you can see from the archive original listing (above) I won the 100+ year old Bienfait violin in an eBay auction for just £12.99. Yet I see that someone else on eBay has a 3/4 size Bienfait for sale at an audacious £650! (archived here). Another sold at auction for £220 (here). One full size sold for £300 on eBay (archived here). I found another full size, in need of a little renovation, went for £180 at auction (archived here) . I found a dealer selling a full size one of these for £395 (archived here). And yet another for sale by a dealer for £850 (archived here). And one for sale at $911 (archived here).








Some areas need gluing and clamping as detected by my "prison shiv" probe. See below.


More pictures of the fixing-up process to follow. 

Meanwhile, asking a polite question about whether these violins were either definitely or possibly made in France - as some of the dealers selling them for several hundred pounds  (listed above) claim - certainly drives some weirdo dominant luthiers and their submissive acolytes on Maestronet into a state of weird mouth foaming territorial diatribes and muddle headiness, the likes of which makes for fascinating study by students of coercive control and online bullying.  

Archived here 





Gluing the table and back in places

I use an electric baby milk bottle warmer (bought on eBay for about £5), small mint jelly jar and a shot glass as my electric glue pot hot hide glue kit. Water goes in the baby bottle warmer and into the mint jelly jar. Then I put some grains of hide glue into the shot glass and add about 1cm of water for this small job. The shot glass sits tight inside the jam jar and then they are sat in the water of the milk warmer (now my electric gluepot).I let the glue swell in the water for about 1/2 an hour before slowly warming and stirring it. I use a meat oven thermometer sat in the glue as I heat the glue up to 70 degrees centigrade and then turn the temperature down to keep it at 60 degrees whilst in use. My prison shiv is perfect for dipping in the hot glue and getting it into the seam - along with ribbing it into it with a finger. A slightly damp cloth is used to  make sure all wet glue is cleaned off the varnish before clamping for at least 24 hours. Pictures below.









Next job is to check the original sound post is in the right place and to prepare the ground for shaping the feet of a blank bridge to fit the curved top of this violin before the bridge is thinned and trimmed to size so the strings are set at the right height on the fingerboard. 

Checking the position of the sound post and where the bridge will sit. Masking tape is used here. One half of a cut business card is slipped into the f-hole until it touches the sound post. The other half on top of the violin face then gives a pretty accurate location of the sound post. Here it is where it should be in relation to the foot of the bridge and distance form the bridge, which should be the same as the thickness of the violin face. 


The bridge feat were shaped to fit the curved table of the violin precisely. 
The bridge was then cut so that the strings are at the right heights from the fingerboard. The bridge was then thinned and finally tuned whilst on the violin to ensure the strings play evenly. I added a Wittner composite fine tuner, because these are perfect for students in my inexpert opinion.

Funny thing: This violin was almost completely dead on the a-string for a while. Then after some hard playing it woke up and has stayed awake since. I've never experienced that before. Now it plays very nicely for a student violin. It is open and bright and resonates and projects very well for a 3/4 size.


All fixed up - plays really nicely.
Ready for a new home and a child to play and love it. 








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