Bummer!

Not that bad, probably. Keep it out of the rain lol.

How big of a spot has been exposed and what is this "oil" that removes violin finish?

Here is a picture ... The oil is aromatic oil you know in a bottle you fill it with oil and put these wooden sticks in it

quote:

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Originally posted by Quincy

Here is a picture ... The oil is aromatic oil you know in a bottle you fill it with oil and put these wooden sticks in it

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That’s a pretty large spot. Color matching such a considerable surface area is very tricky.

I’d say there are a couple practical options:

1) Have it touched up to look as close to the original as possible. This may require some time to allow for a gradual buildup of color and film thickness to match the refraction, opacity, and color scheme of the original. It will be very difficult for the luthier to make the spot disappear.

2) Make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. The spot looks enough like antiquing that you could probably get away with having it finished to look intentional. A few nicks and scratches, some pigments for patina, and some clear varnish to seal it could make it look fairly convincing. It could even just be French polished with clear shellac alone after the pattern from the fabric that left a mark on the back is either filled in or rubbed out. The whiteness of the wood could be toned down by a bit of touchup to match the color of the ground, then polished. This might end up looking fairly nice and could give the violin a good story to go with it—some mishaps just become a part of a violin’s history. The value of the instrument will typically be lower because it’s not pristine, but if it looks pretty enough, it might resell for a decent amount down the road.

Hello Rich, thank you to have a look at it and give your opinion, which is much appreciated. If it still might be visible than maybe option 2 is the better option!
This fiddle I would never sell or exchange , my mother gave it to me and it is my first own decent instrument. I played it yesterday, I hear and notice no difference in sound or playability, that is what makes it easier to get over the now blank spot. If I read and reread the second option you give this sounds like an appealing solution even. Hopefully my luthier will also see the fun in giving it this antique look.

My luthier has been called , I sent him a couple of pics , also of the spot in daylight, he is going to have a look at it and give me his ideas also. Now see what the outcome of this will be! I felt a bit guilty when I told him what happened, he recently put some work in my two fiddles and did an excellent job in restoring the old fiddle I once bought also and I just felt like well ...my clumsy self I guess - always having incidents that could have been prevented if my mind was more often in synchronization with my earthly body :-/

Rich's ideas are probably good, but ultimately the solutions available to you will depend on the skills and confidence of your luthier once he sees the damage. As you can see the color of a violin is in the finish, not the wood, and luthiers sometmes refer to applying the finish as "painting" the instrument. People who can do this type of repair are often more artists than craftsmen, since they have to match not just the general color, but the age and nuances of the original varnish, as Rich noted.
I don't know what "etheric oil" oil is - maybe like what we might call an "essential oil?" In any case, it must contain some solvent, probably alcohol, capable of dissolving shellac, so be careful with it in the future. Hope the repair turns out well.

I’ve read that ethanol or isopropyl alcohol are often added to essential/etheric oils to make them soluble and miscible with water for preservation.

I just looked up the bottle that I use to refill, it was fragrance oil, so aromatic oil with also synthetic ingredients , unlike essential oils or what I called etheric oil - which contains no synthetic ingredients. Anyway, so yes : definitely some kind of solvent in it!

After the incident I realized the danger of having that aroma gift set around my fiddles and put it in a safer spot, this may indeed never happen again! (The incident also made me discover plugin room refresheners, works like magic with a dog )

I will wait for my luthier's answer. Let's hope he is indeed also a bit of an artist as well and gets some good ideas.

This reminds me a bit of a violin I repaired a few years ago. A customer brought me a French violin he’d bought at auction hoping to do a little work to fix it up and then flip it for a substantial profit (this was his hobby). The problem was that there was a large spot on the back that had been touched up with a very opaque red varnish that did not match the original varnish around it. The customer asked me to make the spot disappear. I was a little nervous taking it on, knowing it would be a huge undertaking and that I couldn’t guarantee it would be invisible. The customer insisted that whatever I did with it would be better than it was in its current state.

I began removing the touchup varnish and discovered why it was so opaque: someone had decided to attempt to repair a back soundpost crack and had failed at it. When the crack showed up as a black line, the miscreant had sanded the varnish off and even some of the wood to see if he could make it disappear. That didn’t work, so he instead slathered the area with white wood filler and then painted over it to hide the filler. Of course the retouching was clearly visible, but the crack had been hidden by the filler (it wasn’t obvious from inside). I think he had glued it poorly and then brushed colored varnish over the crack without filling the void, causing color to seep into the crack and stain the wood, turning the crack black. Everything that followed was a panic-stricken frenzy to hide the mistakes.

I got everything removed so that the wood was exposed again. Because there were deep scratches in the wood from very coarse sandpaper I had to scrape the wood a bit to remove the marks and get an acceptable surface to seal—if I left the marks, they would have filled in with varnish and turned dark just as the crack had. I soaked the crack open over the period of a couple weeks, working at it a bit each day. When the crack was open I was able to clean out the non-hide glue that had been used and remove the staining. When the surface was prepared I sealed it and began the laborious process of bullring up color. This was especially tricky because the violin was varnished with a rather thick red varnish that was quite transparent. Varnishes like that are unbelievably difficult to color match, because the refractive index also has to match or the color will only look good in one direction but will turn light or dark in another.

I spent months building up the color after the crack was repaired The customer was very eager to get the violin back and began asking when the violin would be ready at least weekly despite having told me to take my time to make it the best repair I could. I provided progress emails and pictures but he was increasingly anxious to get it back and sell it, so the tone of his began to change to annoyance that it wasn’t finished yet. When the color had been matched and the varnish was just about leveled, I put on a few clear coats of varnish to protect the color, finish. The leveling, and allow for polishing to blend in with the original. When the final polishing was done, I put the violin aside fora week before arranging a time for the customer to pick it up. Because it had taken so many coats of varnish to build up the color, the varnish, while dry to the touch, was still in a state of curing and would be for several weeks. I warned the customer that it would be sensitive to contact and heat for a good while as it cured, and he assured me that it would be babied. He was thrilled with the result and said he couldn’t even find the spot anymore. He played the violin and said it was even better than he’d imagined and then happily paid the bill.

A little while later I received an angry message from him. He had taken the violin to an orchestra rehearsal because he wanted to show it off to the concertmaster during a break. Unfortunately, as the violin was sitting in the case (it was warm at the time and I don’t know how long it was in his car) the velour made an impression in the outermost layer of varnish. It didn’t take off any color but it left a fabric impression right over the spot. The customer was extremely embarrassed that the violin he had hoped would wow the player he was trying to impress (the concertmaster was also a hobbyist violin flipper and I think the customer had hoped it would turn into a quick sale). When he demanded an explanation for this happening, I reminded him that the varnish was still soft and that I had warned him about letting it sit in contact with anything. I told him that while it didn’t look pretty, it was just superficial and that the color was all intact. Because he had paid a significant amount for the work and had brought me several other violins to resurrect already, I offered to make it whole again free of charge, although I would need some time to let it dry. The thought of having to wait coupled with having to make a 6 hour round trip drive for just the one thing made the customer unwilling to bring it back. He began insulting me, claiming I’d taken it for far too long, done poor work if the varnish wasn’t dry, saying I’d overcharged, and that the violin sounded bad. I pointed out how happy he’d been with its appearance and sound when he got it back and how he’d said the repair was worth at least what he’d spent. I had also reglued the fingerboard and bushed the peg holes, and he insulted the work on the bushings. I think he must have dropped the case because the fingerboard had come off. I hadn’t done anything with the fingerboard when I was working on the violin and it wasn’t loose. Add to all this a suggestion that I’d rushed and done sloppy work. This was incredible because I had severely undercharged for a repair that took me six months. I had definitely lost a lot of money working on it but I’d taken on the challenge mostly as a favor to a repeat customer. Again, I offered to fix the varnish again and even reglue the detached fingerboard free of charge and I told him that I always stand behind my work and would never do anything in a haphazard manner. He didn’t ask for a refund but instead chose to cut off communication. I’ve never heard from him since. I'm embarrassed at how little I charged for such a monumental job and I know that just about anyone else would have likely charged nearly ten times what I asked. Sometimes you just can’t win.

That's quite a story Rich! What I learn from this is that I need to be careful with the varnish after the job has been finished although I would not know how you prevent contact with other surfaces/objects, I mean it has to rest on something when you put it down, right?
My luthier received the pictures but I haven't had a reply yet, I guess he expects me to call so that he can explain what he thinks.

Varnish curing is one of those things that drive luthiers crazy. There’s a famous correspondence between Stradivari and a customer where the maker is apologizing for the delay of a few months in getting a violin out because the varnish is still tacky. When instruments are shipped overseas they often take impressions from cases or whatever packing material is used. At one of the shops where I worked, the rentals and “step-ups” all came from a supplier in China. The cellos always came wrapped in plastic and/or bubble wrap to keep them from getting scratched in their cardboard boxes. It was common for the plastic to get stuck to the varnish and leave behind an imprint which was dubbed “bag rash.” The owner of the last shop where I worked used to tell me stories about the old days when all the shops got their new Italian violins from one dealer who went back and forth regularly. All the violins were wrapped in brown paper to try to keep them safe, but they would always end up sticking, and the shops had to spend time fixing the varnish on just about every violin before it could be set up and shown to customers.

UV boxes have helped a lot of makers speed up drying time, but especially with oil varnishes, the chemical structure is in a constant state of fluctuation, and what may seem dry is not always so.

After a significant varnish repair has been done, it’s good to keep the violin in a well-ventilated area where it can cure. In my own workshop I store violins in that process on their sides so that the plates are not in contact other than at the edges (which are much easier to retouch). In some cases if thus isn’t practical for some reason, I’ll put a block beneath the scroll to hold it up and just let the bottom edge of a plate come into contact. This is really only something you can do in an area that will be safe.

In a case, one can use wax paper to limit exposure until the varnish has cured. Some makers cover the bottom padding of cases with cardstock for shipping. A suspension case should only touch the back toward the bottom block and neck block, so contact should be localized, but the velour used in cases has a way of getting into varnish. Some players use silk bags to help with fine instruments. The bags do reduce sticking, but the varnish can still take an impression from the material.

If the luthier agrees to work on it and gives an estimate of a very long turnaround time, it will take the need for drying into account. A spot that large will be tacky for a while if you choose to have it retouched to match the original.

Sorry this happened! I think in the end it'll add some character and you'll have a good story to tell when someone asks!