Old Fiddle Story (Great-great-Grandpa's Fiddle)

[Chet Bishop]

Some of you may enjoy this post:
http://www.bluefiddles.com/2013/10/grea ... ays-fiddle

Chet Bishop

[Wayne Brown]

Chet,
I have a fiddle that was given to me by my wife's cousin. It was rescued from the trash to be picked up off the street! It then decorated his wall and finally was stored in the attic for some time. It is a Mittenwald violin with the same design on the back as your grandpa's. It was in really sad shape and not taken good care of from what I could tell. There were cracks in the top, the top and back were separating, not a proper nut, guitar end pin, etc. It's been put back together, varnished and waiting to dry enough to glue the FB and new nut back. It will have it's battle scars showing through the finish (that's it's history). It will never look as nice as your grandpa's fiddle. But, hopefully it will wake up and realize that it is a fiddle and make beautiful sounds, like your grandpa's!

[Chet Bishop]

I expect it will sound fine. Proper set-up and extensive play-in may be required, but it will probably sound good, especially when you consider how it started life and what it has endured so far.

Chet

[Wayne Brown]

This rescued fiddle is playable once more. It just needs a good play-in like you said. It does sound much better than I had expected!

[Wayne Brown]

Here's one more pic!

[Chet Bishop]

Is the black inlay ebony, or what? It is the same design as mine, it seems. I've never seen one like that. It seems to be in much better condition than mine, too.

[Wayne Brown]

The design on the back had a black mastic inside purfling with bits of abalone (floor scraps maybe?) pushed into the mastic. Over half of the abalone was missing. I decided to mix ebony dust with glue and fill the voids, then level, leaving just a plain black design. (I know it's not original, but the finish was so bad that I completely refinished it)

[Chet Bishop]

Ah. I see.... too bad you didn't just clean out the old mastic and find some more abalone chips at a hobby store or whatever. Guess you could still do that if you wanted to "restore" it to its former glory.

Looks like it was made by the same group all right.

I didn't re-finish mine, obviously. Yours looks nice. Looks new, from what I can see in the photos.