Violin Forum/Message Board

MANFIO · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:19 am Post subject:

I think life is too short for playing bad violins and drink bad wine... I went to a party some years ago and someone asked me to play a potboiler... It's hard to make music with a potboiler. And if we can make music with a potboiler we deserve a better instrument urgently.

My brother travelled in China, he is a businessman. He told me many employees there have no idea about the use of the objects they are making.
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spystyle · Member Joined: 08 Feb 2008 Posts: 49 Location: Maine, USA

I tried Google and eBay... To no avail.

What is a potboiler?

FiddleDoug · Member Joined: 08 Sep 2007 Posts: 227 Location: Hilton, NY

Well, I just finished working on a VSO for a client. He's a beginning adult student who bought it on a whim from Ebay. He bought a nice old German trade instrument from me last fall, and decided he wanted to bring this VSO up to playing condition to use out at pubs and picnics and such.
Here's what I found:
Plywood top & back about 3.8 mm thick
Very poorly done blocks & linings
Dyed wood fittings
The FB shape is OK (luckily) and won't require replaning
Very poor quality soundpost about 1/2 inch from where it should be
Nut too high - about 2 mm
Bridge too low - about 2 mm clearance on E string at end of FB
Poor peg fit.
To get it to playing condition it required; a new soundpost, new bridge, peg refit, nut adjustment with the necessary re-dying.
I also put a set of Helicore strings to drive the thick plates.
The result is an OK sounding instrument, but it cost him a bit over $100 above the cost of the original instrument to get it there. I could have put him into a much better quality new instrument for not too much more.
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Doug Wall

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catatoniatoday · Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:32 pm Post subject:

hi, i have one of these violins. i'm just starting out and i want to learn to fiddle very badly...always have.

i'm waiting for it to come home from the luthier...my bandmate told me that it would never ever stay in tune unless i had the pegs replaced. so i'll be paying over 80eur to have this done to the $40 thing.

after having bought it a new bridge, strings, etc. etc.

the thing is that i'm in a country duo and we're kind of a comedy act; i really wanted an idiosyncratic instrument, and i thought that i could treat this like a nice instrument and it would be...well anyway, sorry for rambling. i see now that no matter what i do it will never be a nice instrument, but only a cheap ebay violin. dreams shattered.

does anyone make nice pink violins?