Viola Repair

Early in January,

I recieved a call regarding a viola that had been damaged and was in need of prompt attention. It belongs to a very busy professional musician and she had performances scheduled for mid February during which she would be using this instrument. Since the new cracks were fresh and clean, and the old ones that required attention did not look too bad, I felt comfortable taking the job. How the damage occurred was hard to discern. She had no recollection of any impact and I could find no evidence. My best guess was that the case may have been closed hard onto the top of the bridge. All that we know for sure is that from one day to the next the damage appeared.

All of the white cracks in the above images

are an indication of some sort of an impact. Below are some photos of what the things looked like  inside after the top was removed.

This bass bar

looked to be quite old but probably was not original. It had been reglued previously at the ends and was not only quite thin in section but also assymetrical- the highest part of the bass bar was under the bridge foot instead of at the center of it. I know there are some modern instrument makers who install new bars this way but I am not one of them, even though I don’t see that approach as being “wrong”. The end result is what counts and we all hope for an instrument with a full bass voice. The image below shows you what typically occures after a couple of centuries of fitting a sound post under the treble side of the bridge. On the modern instruments I build I install a small maple veneer at this position that is .25 mm thick. The repair in this case is similar but I chose to use a spruce veneer instead.

A number of different repairs are in progress in the image above.

The bass bar has been removed, a spruce veneer is being glued down over the sound post contact area and a small crack is also being glued at the upper platform. The little pillars glued to the top on either side of the old crack are there in preparation for gluing the  crack effectively. Small wedges are are inserted into the space between the pillars and this helps to control the alignment on the outside surface. While this approach takes extra time it produces the best results. Once the crack is re-glued the pillars are simply carved away and the glue that was used to adhere them is easily cleaned up with a damp Q-tip. Please see below.

The new bass bar along with most of the reinforcements to the

top cracks have been installed  in the image below. You may note in the second image that the wood grain of the  reinforcement runs at a 45 degree angle to the grain on the top. This helps to not constrain wood movement while still aiding in holding the crack together. All of the new repair work will recieve some color before the top goes back on.

Preparing to glue the top back on

usually takes a few trial runs to get everything just right. One needs to keep track of the edge overhang all the way around, the neck angle as well, while being sure that the glue joint fits properly. You may have noticed that the clamps in the picture below appear to be handmade. Yup. I also made an entire set for cello assembly. Most of the re-touching to the cracks is usually done by this point. It is simply easier to do while handling individual parts. This whole repair job went smoothly and I was able to return the viola to the customer on time.