Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Repair in the Air

I've been inspired to write a new post. You may wonder why, since I haven't written anything for months. But to sum up what has happened between then and now, here it is. I happily arrived back in Wisconsin after spending my summer in Nashville to start my third year of school. I have finished three fiddles, one of which I get to keep. I've been getting myself more familiar with guitars and lowered the action on my boyfriend's guitar and am working on doing the same for mine. I have started building a viola, which if I remember correctly is approximately 16 1/4 long. Today I just finished gluing the ribs. I started repairing an old fiddle for a friend. I bought it at an antique store for something like 15bucks. It isn't in playing condition. I will end up putting more work than it is probably worth in a shop's perspective, but it gives me something to practice on and it will be my friend's first violin. I will be putting a new neck and scroll on it since it has some pretty severe cracks that someone tried repairing. And last but not least. Last Friday I played my very first show premiering myself. It was about a two hour show with an intermission in there. I played fiddle tunes and did some singing. Had a great time! And my partner, Chris, backed me up on guitar and sang a few himself. I was on cloud nine that night. I don't think I've ever felt quite like I did.

On this old fiddle I am working on, like I said earlier, I will be carving a new scroll and neck for it. I recently bought new accessories for it including a fingerboard. So far I have taken the neck off the body and the top off.. Someone had already put a sizable patch where the soundpost is. I cleaned and glued a couple open cracks on the top and reglued some splinters that came off when the top came off. Next I will cleat the cracks. Below is what the instrument looked like when I got it.
 
 


open seam

A piece of wood was put in. You can see it on the outside here under the G peg.


On top of the pegbox walls some sort of pins were put in.