Friday May 9 12:30pm

I'm restoring a beautiful Johan Gottlieb Fretschner violin from the 1770's at the moment. It is worn, but is largely still in its original condition. It has the original Bass bar and neck! 

Sunday October 7, 8:40pm

I went to Cremona in Italy yesterday. There I went to Mondo Musica,  which is a musical instrument trade fair focused mainly on instruments of the violin family. There were around 250 exhibitors, from violin makers to suppliers of wood, tools, varnish materials, books, cases and accessories. It was like a big toy shop for musicians and violin makers and restorers like me. I will be bringing some great new products into Australia to benefit the music community here, as well as having improved my workshop with new specialized tools and books.

A fellow violin maker, Roberto, put me up for the night and really showed me such wonderful and warm Italian hospitality.

At the same time there was also an exhibition of Andrea Amati violins. I went to it this morning. It was absolutely amazing. There were 21 instruments from various times of his life.  It was fascinating to see such a large collection of his instrument in one place. Amati had a really beautiful fluent making style that I find truly inspiring.

One of the instruments there was the "King Cello"

The other great thing at the museum is the collection of Antonio Stradivarius's tools. I have got a picture of some of his tools above.

Cremona is an amazing city with around 250 violinmakers of various backgrounds and styles. There are makers that learned locally, in Germany, England the US and many other places in the world.

Tuesday September 4, 11:40am

I'm currently restoring an early 19th century Italian violin. I'm still working on identifying the maker. The violin only arrived in Brisbane from America recently.

Unfortunately it had been previously repaired with something that looks very much like epoxy resin!!! I have been removing it with a scraper. Now there is a tedious task!!!! I end up having to re-sharpen the scraper regularly. It's amazing how much of my job is to re-restore badly done repairs.

The back of the instrument has been glued on with the same material, so it will be interesting to see how difficult it will be to remove.

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