Violin Restoration Blog
Tuesday August 31 2010 3:35pm
It is amazing how well you get to know some instruments.... I recently got sent a Friedrich Wilhelm Meisel violin from 1783 for some edge repairs. It looked really familiar... It turns out that the last time I saw the violin was when I worked on it in the mid 1980's!! that is over 20 years ago, but I still recognized it.
FW Meisel was one of the masters working in Klingenthal in Saxony from 1769 till 1799. He comes from a family line of violinmakers stretching from the 1600's till current times. This particular violin lost two of its edges in an accident and I'm in the process of repairing it. First I had to find some matching wood. I have quite a few pieces of spruce from the 1940's which are suitably aged for the repair. The instrument also has unusual purfling
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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Last updated 08-Apr-2012