Welcome to our forum. A Message To Our New and Prospective Members . Check out our Forum Rules. Lets keep this forum an enjoyable place to visit.
Check out our 2023 Group Christmas Project HERE
So the prologue to this thread can be found in the "Yinfente" thread, where I was inspired to get a Yinfente 5-string violin. I went onto ebay and bought what turned out be an awful trainwreck of a knock-off.
Here's a run down of the problems:
1. Fittings not ebony. Fittings not even hard wood. Fittings so soft, they might even be made of redwood.
2. Nut was cut and notched with a rusty screwdriver and glued on with Elmer's.
3. Bridge not fitted or notched, and also made of soft wood. Bridge also cut as an isosceles triangle, no chest/back.
4. Endpin split in half and popped out on first tuning.
5. Tailpiece made of non-matching fake plastic rosewood, extra sharp snaggle-tooth on one of the fine tuners.
6. Control box faulty. Line out burned out in 5 mins and headphone out only had left side working. Jacks so tight I needed pliers to get my cord out after plugging in.
Needless to say, I went straight back to the seller and asked for a return. The seller had the nerve to make me to pay the return shipping back to China for an exchange. After a couple calls to ebay, I got my moneyback, and was left with this shamble of a violin thinking it was best left as firewood. It sat for a week or so because I just didn't have the heart to let even a violin-shaped, violin-shaped object go in the trash.
So I decided to see if I could resurrect it. And because the thing never lived as a violin in the first place, that makes it's resurrection more of an undead-making.
Here's what I did:
1. Filed and notched the nut
2. Bought a bridge blank and cut a new bridge. Notice the old bridge, the sad face was drawn in with the corner of the new bridge.
3. Replaced the control box.
4. Replaced tailpiece with a Wittner Ultra 5-string tailpiece with integrated tuners.
5. Took my jewelry hammer and turned/tapped in the pegs (praying that the soft-wood peg-box didn't split in the process) to compress the grain, alternating with healthy amounts of peg dope.
6. Fixed the tailpiece with a drywall screw (sometimes the only way to deal with savagery is MORE savagery)
7. Changed the strings. I went with a set of Opera synthetic core violin strings from ebay (I'm somewhat surprised with how well these are working) and a D'Addario Prelude C string.
And the result is surprisingly fun to play! Considering the things I bought specifically for this project were the control box ($19), bridge ($6 for 5 blanks), carving knife for the bridge ($20), tailpiece ($15), and strings ($15). I think I did ok for 75 bucks and an adventure in violin repair. I'm happy for the educational experience, and I have a playable instrument where there wasn't one before
Regulars
Regulars
Honorary advisor
Regulars
Thanks for the kind words, @coolpinkone , @ElisaDalViolin , @mischa91 , @MrYikes , @DanielB , @Reptile Smile !
And thanks for the badge @Fiddlerman ! My first badge, and it's the one I didn't think I'd ever wind up with
@cdennyb , The bridge carving was my favorite part (and the drywall screw the most horrifying in the "I can't believe I thought of this..I can't believe I'm actually doing it...I can't believe it's actually going to work!..kind of way). It was the main reason why I decided I want to try making this violin play. I learned so much from the process, and I really appreciate the vote of confidence! I'm glad it looks ok to an experienced bridge carver
I also made a video, but I can't seem to embed it :/
1 Guest(s)