This is the third neat thing from my busy June 3.
As mentioned in my previous June 3 post, I was at my favorite Pawnshop and bought a 3/4 cello and a 15” viola. I currently have a 15 1/2” Rudolf Doetsch viola.
My “new” 15” viola is an old Hungarian made viola. The tailpiece only has fine tuners for the D and A strings. I put used Jagar Classic strings on her to replace the three that were on her. The pegs are not easy to turn, even with wiping them down good to clean snd using the with peg stuff. I have issues with tuning pegs on all of the instruments and use the fine tuners or get geared pegs put on them. It sounds nice, the D and A strings I was able to tune. Not as full sounding as my 15 1/2” Rudoulf Doetsch, but it is not in that class and is smaller.
I could not get the C and G strings tuned. I was going to take the tailpiece with fine tuners off a really cheap test viola I bought as my first one and put it onto this pawnshop viola. It has four fine tuners. That is a 16” viola, though. Will order a 15” viola tailpiece. Bummer Will have to wait to really give it a go.
The viola shows its use but the seams are not cracked. It is not perfect. It has been lovingly used. That is what draws me. I love the look of a used instrument. Will write a post about that. Can’t wait to get the tailpiece. Then I can tune her up and see what she sounds like. I am sure the strings that were on my larger viola were not meant for this 15” viola, but until I get some idea about it, I did not want to spend money on strings for a 15” viola.
She came with a hard case. I cleaned it up thoroughly. Love the wear it shows on the outside. The inside is gold or amber colored and is in terrific shape. I vacuumed it thoroughly and discarded the items that were inside. I was not going to use them.
It also came with a bow. The bow is straight. But, under the grip I noticed there is no wire wrap. Maybe it moved when I moved the little leather grip up they added? Or maybe it isn’t there. I originally thought I liked the feel of the bow. The hair has to be replaced. We have that. But, I don’t think it is worth it to waste the hair on that bow. It is a Glasser. The gold or amber hair on it looks, feels and bows like it is plastic, even after a good rosining. Weird. It is straight as an arrow though. I think it is fiberglass.
It is a violin bow, not a viola bow. I am not sure I want to waste new hair on this stick. I will have to look at it again. The issue may be that plasticky hair on it. It is rosined, makes no difference. You can see through the amber hairs. They don’t look like horse hair at all. We cleaned the hairs and they are still amber and feel the same. There is no “grip” like on the horse hair strings. Magnified views of horse hair bow strings show little tiny barbs, if I remember correctly. There are none on these. They are smooth like optical filaments, actually, but that is not what they are, just a description.
Anyway, I can’t wait to give her a try. It will be a while, though.
I did a lot of editing in Notepad before posting this. Hope I caught everything.