The Repairing & Restoration of Violins Part 8

Being left to dry, and this being complete, the cramps or wedges, as may have seemed appropriate, are removed, the cross pieces cut away and the glue washed off.

The paring down of the fresh wood to the level of the surrounding parts has now to be very carefully done. The adjacent curves must be studied and the surfaces of the fresh parts worked until by testing, not only by the sight, but pa.s.sing the finger across, the surface feels as one piece.

For the small parts that require levelling, small pieces of gla.s.spaper attached to a stick of pine shaped according to requirement will be found useful.

The fresh wood will of course be projecting some way beyond the edges or course of the line of the sound holes, the exact outline of which it is most desirous to continue.

This is about to be attended to by James, who thinks it a small matter to continue the line with his sharp knife, but his master happened to catch sight of his first strokes and sees his intention in time. "Stop!"

he calls out, "not another stroke; just take a tracing of the opposite or corresponding part of the other sound hole and trace it down, don't trust to your eye unless you consider yourself an artist of experience and able to actually draw with your knife.

"You must attend to another thing besides the tracing of the contour.

When you cut up to the line that you take as a guide, you must see that you make the walls of the opening at the same angle downwards, and your fresh wood in every respect of form an exact continuation of the old work."

The repair so far as the wood work is concerned is finished. It has now to receive the varnishing and touching up in detail for matching so as to arrest as little attention as possible as a repair.

"There are two fiddles, sir, that a party brought here yesterday. They seem very far gone; one of them has lost quite a quarter of the upper table, it has had a bad smash and the pieces have not been saved."

"Well, James," is the reply, "there is only one course to pursue, that is, to put a fresh piece of wood, join it as neatly as possible and match the varnish. I think we have a piece of old stuff sent us by an Italian dealer that will suit that exactly." The store of odds and ends of pine is rummaged over and the piece, with some pencil notes on it of date, etc., brought out and compared with the fractured fiddle.

"Could not be better, James," says the chief. "Now take off that table, or what remains of it, and pare the ragged edges at the part near the sound hole.

"At that part you had better shave it at an angle from the upper surface and make a corresponding start on the fresh wood; they must both fit to a nicety, and when so the old wood will overlap the fresh stuff.

You will take care to have the upper surface of the fresh wood a little above the level of the old, to allow of finishing down to a good level when the time comes for the final touches."

This is all seen to, the large slice of wood is for the present left square at the top, it is thick enough to represent the appearance of the slab of wood used by the original maker before the table was cut into form. There is some gouging to be done and shaping of the parts adjoining the old wood.

It has, of course, been necessary to provide a sort of mould for fitting and pressing from above the thin shaved edge of the old material on to the new. Precaution, however, is taken to firstly glue the parts that are to be brought together at the joint. This will prevent the shaved surfaces from slipping when pressure is applied.

These parts of the process having been done and the glue dried sufficiently, the under surface is levelled all round as a continuation of the under part of the old border.

The table, therefore, can now be laid flat, and should fit well on to the ribs and linings as it did before the fracture. James now has recourse to the advice of his chief as to the best course to pursue.

"Shall I trace the other side, sir, and mark it down on the fresh wood so as to make it balance?"

"Certainly not," answers his chief, "this is what you must do. Lay the table on the ribs as if you were about to glue it down, you can let it be held in position by a couple of screw-cramps, then, with a lead pencil, take as a guide the ribs, holding it so that a mark can be made all round representing the projection of the new edging. A short piece of a pencil laid flat against the ribs and moved round, would perhaps be the most convenient."

James proceeds dutifully to work, marks the edging, and then, after removing the screw-cramps, roughly hews away the wood to near the line.

Much care and more delicate manipulation has to be exercised now, or the precaution of the pencil line will prove to be next to useless.

Files of different degrees of tooth are employed until quite an even contour is obtained and a precise line, the continuation of the pattern, is seen.

The next proceeding will be to mark the thickness of the edging all round. For this purpose a cut line is better than a mere mark, as the cutting up to it is easier and safer. The purfling tool may be regulated and adapted in this case, after which the table will be laid flat, carefully considered, and the more detailed gouging commenced. A small pair of calipers will prove handy for measuring the depth of the channelling of the original parts and gouging down carefully until a corresponding modelling has been effected.

If the original work is sharply defined and a distinctly shaped border is present, then the work must be proceeded with as in the instance of making a new copy of a violin.

Some little difficulty may appear when the question of matching the purfling arises. The a.s.sistant opens a drawer close by, selects a likely piece, compares it with that on the violin, and then shows it to his chief, who examines it in a similar manner. "Yes," he says, "I think that is sufficiently like, in fact, it will not be possible to get nearer, it is a bit of that old stuff, is it not, that we have kept by for an emergency? Have you got the groove cleanly cut and routed out?"

"Yes, sir," is the answer; "I noticed about the depth that would be wanted at that little part where the old stuff had been snapped short at the fracture."

"Well, that will do, James. Be careful to cut the ragged end with a clean angle, doing the same with the fresh stuff--fit the parts accurately, and when you insert the purfling see that the end is pushed home so that as little as possible is seen of the junction of the two ends."

With these injunctions borne in mind, James proceeds to the work.

Having had some experience in this branch of the repairing art, and, further, this being to him a more interesting part than others of the proceedings, he at once sets to work.

Having roughly measured the length of the piece of purfling to be inserted, he finds that it will be necessary to bend it to the curves of the groove made for it. To force it in while in its present condition would not do, as it is nearly straight; for, although it has served to go round a violin in years gone by, it has almost resumed its old condition through the action of the natural damp in the atmosphere.

CHAPTER XV.

REPAIRS TO PURFLING (CONTINUED)--FILLING UP AN OPENING EXTENDING TO THE WHOLE LENGTH OF THE VIOLIN--FITTING THE CORE--FIXING IT IN POSITION AND RETAINING IT THERE--FINISHING THE SURFACE.

Many old Italian violins bear indications of the haste of the maker to get the purfling done, and so without the delay of any intermediary process the purfling has been pressed in with great risk and sometimes an inevitable result of fracture.

In the present instance, the violin having all the evidence of great care having been expended on its construction and finish, the repair, to be as successful as possible, must be carried out on the same principle, every little deviation of curve being well imitated. For the bending of the purfling there may be, of course, any number of methods. According to the consistency of the material, so the management must be.

At present the piece of purfling, having been taken from a portion of an old violin bought for the purpose of breaking up and using for repairs, is very dry and rather brittle. The light coloured part or central portion is of some hard wood that refuses to accommodate itself easily to the requirements of the moment; this is found to be the case on trying a small portion with the fingers--it goes with a snap on very little attempt being made to bend it.

James having met with this kind of thing before, knows more than one way of meeting the difficulty. As is often found, a rough and ready way is good for a small amount of work such as he has before him.

He takes a candle and lights it. He has always at hand a jar of water ready for any damping required in the number of little odd jobs constantly occurring. Placing the jar of water within easy reach, he dips the purfling into it once and then wipes it with his handy cloth.

Taking the two ends with the fingers of each hand he pa.s.ses it backward and forward near the flame of the candle, using a gentle pressure to make it a.s.sume a crescent or bow shape. The heat causes the damp to evaporate and steam the materials, and the purfling will gradually a.s.sume the required curve.

When this latter happens to be short or sudden, another dip and heating may be necessary.

This being successfully accomplished, recourse is now had to the glue pot, a pointed piece of wood is dipped into it, and a small streak of glue is laid in the groove. The purfling is now carefully inserted along the course, pressed in and left to dry.

After a sufficient time has elapsed, James looks over it, and finding all things ripe for finishing, takes a gouge of a size that will suit the channelling of the particular model adopted by the maker.

Great care is necessary to shave off but a small portion as the gouge is pa.s.sed along. The latter has a very keen edge, or it will tear instead of cut. It is used here and there in contrary direction, as the grain of the several parts of the purfling does not run quite level. A curved file, and finally a little gla.s.spapering, will complete the matter so far. There will be for the finishing of the whole of the fresh wood a further process to go through, that is, a slight damping.

This can be done with a small fine grained sponge or a moderately wet camel hair brush. This is for the purpose of slightly raising the grain.

If this is not done at this time the soft part of the grain may show its automatic tendency to swell after the final process of varnishing has been gone through. When quite dry, fine gla.s.spaper is used to reduce the surface to an almost polished level, after which some clear oil, having good drying qualities, is brushed lightly but completely over all portions of the fresh work.

It will not be absolutely necessary that this should be quite dry and hard before proceeding with the varnishing down to the tint of the old and surrounding work.

This being a separate and independent branch of the art of restoration, will be treated apart hereafter.

For the present we will be content to know that this varnishing, a very delicate process in connection with the repair, is undertaken by the chief himself, who sets to work at once and in a manner as if it were a true labour of love, there being no hurry, but careful time-ignoring attention to matching and calculation of effect. Just before settling down with colours, essences, solvents and brushes, he gives directions to his man James to "finish up the crack or fracture in that old 'Stainer' lying on the shelf there behind."

When it is taken down from its place of repose, James looks at it for a moment and then observes, "Rather an awkward job, this, sir! It is more than a crack along the whole length of the fiddle; somebody has been at it trying to mend it and made it positively worse. The edges are quite apart. You can see through in some places, and in others there is a lot of black hard glue."

The chief now has a look over the damaged part and then remarks, "The thread of the pine happens to be very straight, and that will lessen the trouble."

"Right, sir," is James's rejoinder, "not like that Genoese fiddle that we had some time back with the very curly bit of pine that looked as if the tree had been growing at the side of a rock and trying to look round the corner. Fitting a straight piece along the centre of that fiddle was no joke."