I saw an old fiddle witha knot in a string! Wire /metallic strings. I've seen several that had duplicate gage strings, on adjacent positions.
I setup a 3/4 violin with a broken tailpiece. Connected two strings to one hole. It worked fine.
Your turn. . .
I used bicycle bar wrapping tape to secure a perilously loose neck of a fiddle given to me for free. Luckily, for some reason the sound post never moved a millimeter throughout the nightmare, and the fiddle didn't lose a hair of it's already terrible sound quality.
Pretty much every fix I've tried.
i got a bunch of bows, and one of them was snapped in half and just put back together with an antique brass pen casing which said "Gypsy black lead" on one side and "Ocean blue" on the other side no glue or anything. i played with it for about 10 minutes and it worked! Wish i still had it for a conversation piece.
My poor white Barccus Berry fiddle..
One time the fingerboard came off when we were playing a Ren Faire and I had to field glue it back on with horse hide glue from a leather worker stand. Luckily I got into the right position with rubber bands and it worked fine.
Same fiddle - the end pin and saddle were getting all F-ed up. Took it to a supposed "violin shop' on Long Island. Their tech used white marine epoxy to 'fix' it. What a hack job. Played OK but man it looks like a real POS now. Have since moved on to a much, much better fiddle.
LOL, who is worse - violin repairman or an auto shop mechanic?? IMHO either are eligible to be shot at dawn.
That's a bit harsh! :-D
Here's what my violin repair guy (Randy Hoshaw) did to cover up the old shade tree repair job. He does excellent work as Billyk can also attest.
Randy is a true renaissance man. He paints, works in clay, has a great bonsai collection, makes amazing furniture and is a fiddle and guitar building luthier-magician. I feel lucky to know the man.
I think the worst was a violin that someone decided had been thinned out too much. The “repairman” decided to reinforce the top by applying a healthy coating of Bondo to the whole inside. In addition, he had put in a new bassbar that was probably 15 mm thick, very short, and so tall it was actually in contact with the back. I had to remove all the Bondo and then clean and reglue all the cracks underneath before putting a new bar in. The bar was so ridiculous I decided to keep it as a souvenir.
I’ve seen a lot of other nightmares, like a nailed-in soundpost, a replacement peg made out of a chopstick, cleats made out of pre-made spread wedges, and “patches” made out of wood putty. I’m working on a violin currently that has an old soundpost crack. Someone glued the crack, then covered the area inside with putty. The amazing part is that they then went to great lengths to camouflage it, painting in grain lines meticulously and carefully painting an oval to look like the edges of a patch. I’m also in the last stages of work on a cello that had its neck reset and its fingerboard glued on with JB Weld.
I’ve seen knots in strings many times. At least that doesn’t damage the instrument!
Speaking of auto shop mechanics. I had a friend who owned an "antique/junk" store who called me one day to say he had an odd guitar for me to look at. Turned out to be a 1930's wooden bodied National with a guitar neck. The neck had been broken at the heel and "repaired" with red Bondo, liberally applied. I just left it and it held up fine, but the guitar has other problems now.
I was given a fiddle a few years ago by co-worker who was moving away. An ex-husband had worked for a trash company and found it in a garbage can. Neither of them played; it was a wall-hanger. The original pegs were replaced with those adjustable friction tuners like some old banjos have. The bridge is very flat; could probably play three strings at once if I loosen the bow hair enough. The soundpost looks like a home repair -- it's thinner than the norm, a darker wood, and set at about a 60 degree angle. I took it and another gimme to a violin shop. The guy said it's probably a really good instrument, but needs a lot of work. The quote scared me away, at least for now. I'm sometimes tempted to string it up as is, and see how it sounds. I wish I knew the history behind it.
