How Temperature & Humidity Affect Fiddles & Violins

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expertvillage.com. I’m going to talk briefly about some of the more extensive repairs that are done to violins. Unfortunately violins are… as strong as they are, they’re quite vulnerable to some things such as rapid changes in temperature and humidity. And this violin, at one time, back before I owned it I want to say, was subjected to such a big change in temperature or humidity, or both, that a big crack developed here. To make a crack like this… to repair a crack like this, so that it’s both structurally sound and relatively invisible, is a very exacting craft. Unfortunately whoever fixed this instrument wasn’t, didn’t do a very good job, and as a result this crack is always going to be very visible and hideously ugly. Whether it’s having a bad effect on the sound of this instrument is a matter of debate, it’s quite possible that this instrument is sounding about as good as it could possibly sound, inspite of having such an ugly crack. Anyway, a fairly common repair is the reglueing of seams; the top and back are glued to the ribs with hide glue, which is an organic product. And hide glue is susceptible to heat and humidity, and big changes in heat and humidity can cause hide glue to fail. In that case usually a section of the top or back literally becomes unglued from the ribs. And a reasonably skillful person can reglue that section without too much trouble. Reglueing and then removing the excess glue, and making it look like no repairs ever done takes considerably more work. If a violin is dropped, the neck can break; and I’ve seen Tony Creamer at Fretted Instruments put a scroll back together after it had been run over by an Oldsmobile and shattered into 13 pieces, and I saw him put it back together, glue all those pieces together and used both new wood and old wood, and make it almost invisible."