This is one on my free of charge repair list for Nottingham Music Hub today. The patient is an instrument owned by a pupil. They dropped it and the table (face) cracked from the saddle right up to the f-hole. It is a 14 inch viola, which means it is the same length as a full size( 4/4) violin.
This size of viola is most usually a children's size. That said,a 14 inch viola is also commonly employed for violinists learning to play viola.
The sound post was clearly extremely badly fitted - at an angle and not at all in the right location on the treble side of the bridge foot.
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| Badly fitted sound post. Not perfectly vertical. |
The cross on the image below shows where the sound post was located. The a large dot where it should be located.
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| Sound post badly located. Too far in. |
Moreover, when examined the "sound post" looks like it was some bit of left over scrap wood stick picked up off the ground with no regard to the fact a squirrel, mouse or chinchilla had been gnawing on it. I was told this budget instrument always sounded very poor. Well now we have a clue as to why that might be so.
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| Nasty chewed up end of sound post. |
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| Nasty chewed up sound post end |
I glued the crack with my own 50-50- mixture of traditional hide glue mixed with stronger rabbit skin glue. It's a mix I like because of the way the glue handles. I suspect it to be stronger than just hide glue. Either way, its undoable (just like pure hide glue) if ever the need arrives. The crack was glued and clamped. I then reinforced it by using ultra-old school traditional genuine sheepskin parchment squares as cleats (glued in place with the 50-50 mix). The parchment and glue shrinks slightly on setting and pulls the crack even more tightly together, but not too much, just perfectly so.
Note the use of three long crack clamps - with their specially curved shape - and an end-crack-clamp to ensure the crack is tightly glued at the very bottom.
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| The viola was said to sound terrible. Well, its sound post (the heart of the violin) was well off where it should have been. That would have really messed-up the sound. |
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| Crack fixed. The top is hide glued and clamped back into place. |
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| Job done. Tuned. Lick of varnish overt the crack. Sounds better. Repair holding up perfectly |
Also re-gluing yet another Stentor detached fingerboard on a 1/2 size violin. This appears to be a common problem with Stentors - both violins and cellos.
This little 1/2 size violin - set up as a viola - needed two strings replacing and a new sound post making and fitting as well.
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