New back!

It is really rare for me, but this week it hapened: I decided to redo a major part on a newly assembled violin of mine - it just wasn' t right at all. But why hadn' t I realise it earlier during the making?

Last Friday, precisely one week into the Brexit shook, after carefully staining the inside of the back and ribs, stamping, signing and dedicating the violin, I closed it gluing the front on and left it over the week end with a feeling of satisfaction: the thicknesses were really carefully done and the staining looked pretty. 

Once the violin is glued together, it starts to take on a personality of its own. It is no longer the summ of the more and less successful parts but it becomes a whole thing at once.

When I came in on Monday, I took up the violin and whenever I turned it to the back,  the outline and the purfling didn't look like the "Earl of Plymouth" Strad it was supposed to be a copy of, indeed, it didn't look like any Strad at all and it didn't even look like my violin. Then, I quickly turned it back and looking at the front, I started to like it again.

I decided, that it needed a big boost! 

I took the back off, took the lining in one c-bout out and corrected the bad line with a new lining. I am now working with my favourite Strad wood to make this violin mine again.