Books › The Repairing & Restoration of Violins, 1903 › scan 29
Scan 29
The Repairing & Restoration of Violins, 1903
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 15. See the scan on archive.org.
1immense amount of irreparable injury to numbers of violins of any standard of excellence or costliness. This in the way mostly of depressions—"wells" as they are termed by repairers—where the feet of the bridge rest. These are caused by the lid of the case coming down on to the hard wood of the bridge and pressing its feet like dies, into the comparatively softer pine (diagram 5). It
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5is a disfigurement to the violin and is sometimes in a bungling manner altered by inlaying—badly in most instances—square pieces of wood to bring the surface level. This kind of damage to the violin has been attributed to the prolonged pressure on the upper table by the strings being stretched up to modern pitch, but this is a mistake, no strings at all playable would press sufficiently hard and directly downwards to produce this result. The double-cases in use are worse than the single, as they are necessarily stronger and heavier. Both present the same difficulties in estimating whether the violin with its bridge is too high for the roof inside when the lid is closed. A good way of testing it is by rubbing a little soft white chalk over the top of the bridge and then gently shutting the lid down, which also should show no indisposition to do so; if on lifting the lid any of the white chalk is seen to have changed places and got on to the lining of the lid, put aside at once and for ever
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