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I was looking over my acoustic violin the other day, making sure seams were ok and all that other sort of visual check-up, and I spotted this..
The chinrest was definitely touching the ridge on the top of the tailpeice.
So I got out the dremel and a sanding drum and enlarged the channel through the chinrest by about 3 mm. Putting the chinrest back on, I have about 2 mm of clearance now, which is about what I like to see.
It wasn't a dire problem, just one of those things you spot and go "Aw Dang.." because you know it isn't right and you should take care of it. I hadn't been noticing any buzzing, and the afterlength was still in tune after fixing this, so I would guess it wasn't pressing down a lot. Might have been costing a tiny bit of sustain and/or "ring".
I think what happened is that since I played without a chinrest for a couple weeks after changing the tailpiece, I didn't think to check to make sure the chinrest wasn't touching the tailpiece when I put it back on. Live and learn.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
The chin rest on one of my fiddle's was touching the tailpiece, so I did exactly what you did, Dan, I ground it to clear. Actually I was trying to get the chin rest more over the the center of the violin.
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Nice one, Daniel! I wish I could do the same as I have that problem too, but on mine it's the front edge of the chinrest that's hitting the tailpiece. Take that away and it will look a little odd...
~ Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true. ~
My chinrest was once touching the tailpiece, too. I took it back where I bought it, the lutheir adjusted the tailpiece -- the tailpiece gut came loose and that took care of it and my violin stopped buzzing.
If you are brave enough like Daniel and Fiddlestix, you could grind your tailpiece down, or just try adjust the tailpiece first -- that's what my lutheir did, Otherwise you will have to take it to a lutheir.
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@pky: I'd gone to some bother to adjust the tailgut to tune the afterlength, so I didn't consider changing that to be an option. A chinrest on the other hand, if I messed it up real bad I could get another one or play the instrument without it. I'm not a big fan of chinrests anyway, so I considered it a reasonable risk to grind a little off it to make it fit the instrument better.
@Almandin: Mine was touching right at the front edge of the channel in the chinrest that the tailpiece goes through. But not much visible difference with it being just a few mm bigger, and plenty of ebony left for strength, so it seemed a reasonable solution.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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