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A good maker is not always a good restorer. Certain repairs
require ability and great patience, and a good knowledge of restoration techniques.
Many instruments have been damaged in an irreversible way by unexpert hands. |
| A restorer follows certain rules to avoid altering an old (or antique) instrument's
characteristics. The intervention must always be the less invading possible, invisible,
and only to help the function. |
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It reminds me of a story that our teacher told us about
a good maker in Venice who thought he would change the top of an Amati's violin, copying
it in each minimum detail, as the original was too damaged according to him, thus bringing
the value down by half. He was proud of his work, as it took an expert of antique violins
a few seconds to find out about this intervention. For instruments that are of important
value or sentimental value, repairs are always worth it, but somethimes the cost can be
higher than the value of the instrument itself. In any case, a violin must be in perfect
condition at all times to give the best of itself (from the strings to the acoustic box,
that might have some imperfection). There are many important interventions that can be
done, for example, neck grafting, the sound post patch (fracture repair underneath the
soundpost) or doubling the edges when they become too thin due to too many openings of
the box. The bass bar can be substituted when the instrument gives signs of acoustical
problems, obviously not before having controlled strings, bridge, sound post, hair of the
bow.
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