handmade, really cool looking.
from what i found out,it was a "beginners" voilin made in germany at the turn o the century. its pretty nice all in all, the pegs were lathe turned and custom made to each peg hole size. everything is quility on this piece except the fingboard, its maple, that was stained, which is odd becuz i have seen about a million pieces(furniture included) that were ebonized, it was a big thing to do back then.
anywho.
the back was starting to come off and it was warped out pretty bad, so a good re-working and re-glueing is deffinitly in order.
voilins and cellos were generally glued with hi-li glue(sp?) its this natural sap stuff that works great for a few years and then falls apart. this was done on purpose in order to replace the tone bar under the bridge ever so often, plus it makes repairs a breeze!
the glue on this peice has turned black and started to rot away, but at some point it was worked on and repaired(Im guessing 50+ years ago cuz of the style of glue that was used)
basically instead of steaming the glue line like i usually do i just heated up a putty knife with an iron and slowly worked the back off.
it took me about 2 hours to get it all the way off, which sounds like a long time but i expected it to take longer.
it may be hard to tell but you can see the crack that was repaired and you can also see that the bracing is a part of the top, its basicall just a piece that they did not carve out, very cool.
ok, to get the back to its former glory i had to make a jig or sorts....
its really just a flat surface that i can clamp the back to and press the curve back out while keeping the rest of it(sides) striaght and flat.
and its good that i made this becuz once i put the back on it, it became clear that the back itself was not flat(the sides i mean)
so while that was drying, i starting making some THIN pieces of mohogany to repair the craks in the top.
*I know this thread is probly boring most of you, and then those of you that arent bored by it are probly saying "wtf this is not a guitar!" but i think its rather cool, and it does contain a bit of knowledge that would be helpful incase any shortscaler encounters a peice with the same problems.*
once i had it set it, i turned on my iron, got out the wet paper towels and my bridge clamp(it has a deap throat making it perfect for this job)
and i started steaming away. and using the clamp i ever so carefully started to apply pressure to the center of the warp.
all of this was done yesterday in between other projects, so this morning i took off the clamps on all the pieces to check the progress.
the back looks pretty good so far, i can tell that there is a crack forming, but thats no big deal, its to be expected really, i can't honestly think that im going to get 100 years of warping out in one night witout some fight.
and the mohog veneer crack repair thing turned out better than i thought it would.
it looks like there is a gap in the photo, but its just the shadow that makes it look like there is space between the veneer and the top.
