Chapel Violins day 1

I have had a very interesting and fulfilling day at the violin school.

Another big English breakfast was served. Today, I opted for bacon, egg, potatoes, baked beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. This was per-emptied with the grapefruit and strawberries. A glass of orange juice and real coffee helped to wash it all down. It was lovely to meet my fellow student, Stephan from Singapore. We had good conversation, which was continued on our way to the Violin School.

A phone call to Lawrie for his birthday was a must after breakfast and away Stephan and I went.

After a short 5 minute walk to Chapel violins, I finally met John Gosling who is going to be my tutor for the next two weeks, as well classmates for the day, Jackie and Eugene. When Stephan and I arrived, there was a conversation going on between John and Jackie about taking the top off a violin which Jackie had brought in to work on. Eugene was working away on his cello restoration in the corner.

Jackie comes in once a week to work on her restorations. She has come to learn violin restoration as a change in career. At present, Jackie is working on three instruments to build her skills. She began spring of last year. Her partner is also a violin maker. Today she was working on taking the top off a violin, with John's help, as well as touching up the stain on a violin, fixing up cracks on a removed violin top and John also helped her with bushing the peg holes and repairing a crack in the same peg box.

Eugene was waiting for the job on his cello to dry, so he set to putting strings, chin rest, on his very own made instrument. He was very excited to hear that I playing violin and it was an honor to be the very first person to play his instrument. It has a lovely clear sound which spoke clearly through the full range of strings. What an exciting experience! I will play it for him over the next few days as it settles and develops it's voice.

Throughout the whole day, Stephan worked very hard on carving the back of his instrument. He hardly spoke a word and worked with focus.

I gained a wealth of knowledge throughout the day, watching some of the jobs which were carried out by the others, as well as learning how to fit a set of pegs. My rite of passage is marked by the developing blisters on my right thumb and pointer finger.

All in all, I learnt:

• how to ream peg holes
• Cut pegs to fit
• How to remove glue by using mentholated spirits
• Violin glue is made from rabbit fur
• Not all violin makers play a stringed instrument
• There are only one or two jobs in violin making where you can use araldite
• Some repairers are guilty of using araldite where they should not
• There is much to learn
• How to clean out the dirty violin with cooked rice

Our day finished at 6 pm. By this time the rains which had been consitently falling throughout the dayhad ceased. Stephan and I went for a walk, as the sky was magnificent and I wanted to find a good scene to set it off. Unfortunately I did not find anywhere that was any good. We did find a lovely Cantonese take away, which proved to be very delicious.



A load of washing and a bit of hand washing completed, as well as this post and check of the email finishes my very busy day.

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