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Picked up this violin that will be a challenge to say the least.
The repairs made to it are scary.
The neck is broken loose and wedged.
The homemade peg is awesome to say the least.
The tailpiece was rigged after the holes tore out.
And then there’s the bow. Glued and wrapped and coated with more glue

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I had an anxious moment, thinking that bocaholly’s recent trek into diy went south.
Very interesting adaptation of a baroque tailpiece. Looks like fingerboard was wedged for more projection (that repair looks decent). A spline joint down the center of the bow head and the insertion of a thin slice of ebony (or similar) should correct the bow.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.

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It is actually another mosaic, once I reset the neck I’ll decide if it needs the wedges, the mosaic needs a few pieces replaced. I started fixing the bow, it has a silver tip guard. I cleaned the glue off with acetone, clamped the pieces and glued them. I am rigging up a saw to cut in a spline. The bow needs straightened also. Not sure if bow is worth it or not but I wanted to try just for the heck of it. As I do the project I’ll post pics and updates.

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Steve, an idea for you. Harbor Freight makes a saw blade sharpener that takes about a 4 inch diameter diamond blade. I purchased a few “scratch and dent” examples for $20 each. If you replaced the blade with a thin metal cutting blade with fine teeth, it would be fairly easy to make a bow head holding jig for the cut.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.

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Tore the old girl down last night, the top was repaired badly.
The top is hand carved, you can see the gouge marks, the bass bar is carved as one piece with the top. It is actually quite rough looking. There are only two corner blocks.
You can see where no one cleaned up the old glue that oozed after putting it back together.

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Hi bocaholly. The patch is too low on the bout to involve the sound post (which is situated approximately midpoint on the f holes). Cleats are typically used because they have less mass. The current patch is a rather useless repair since the wood grain is running parallel with that of the plate (one split will force the other to accompany it in defeat).
I have heard of, but never seen an example, of the bass rib carved from the same piece of wood with the front plate. That is the way violins were made “back in the day” when good wood was plentiful and time had little relevance.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.

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bocaholly said
Stand correctedWill beef up on my violin geography. Next thing you know, I'm going to be stringing my violin like this:
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Lmao, also need to fit that bridge a little better to the top
tore off the old patch, it was also cracked above the f hole, got both glued, and the top cleaned a little.
the crack isn’t perfect, but considering the old glue and such, it’s not too bad.
next up are the cleatsgoing on. Need to have to find some abalone to repair the mosaic, my MOP doesn’t match, might use a local pen shell instead

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You're right, Steve, (girly opinion) that MOP disc you show isn't a great match. What's the black background made of? If it's reproducible, I think a more discrete mosaic repair could be done by filling in with that stuff.
If you or Mack have your heart set on MOP, they sell it on Etsy, a few dollars for a dozen or so little discs like yours... and some is more colorful and translucent.
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