I sometimes pick up antique violin cases from the fabulous Animato strings on Brisbane’s Northside. They usually come via old European instruments, sourced and hand picked from attic’s all over Europe as they make make their way to Dietrich, who specialises in fine one of a kind European instruments.
The cases while potentially beautiful, need quite a lot of work to get them up to standard for the exterior and interior, and they come less protective of a violin than their modern counterparts. All up they take around 20hours to get them up to scratch ( Antique cases ) and make a fun project, but you need a lot of different skills to get them there, so are not for the average punter. Hence you can buy them quite inexpensively for around $30
This beauty is a timber finish on the outside and felt on the inside and made a good project for my 11yr old. First up the outside is sanded and repainted (we like Danish oil which is a fine furniture timber finish), is a combination of tung oil – which gets in deep and a urethane for the surface and surface protection.
Inside the felt and lining frames need to be taken out. Then we add a frame near the neck to give the case some more rigidity (this makes sure it closes properly by reducing flex) and gives somewhere to attach the neck support later on too. matthew also replaced the rosin box and added some frame elements for the bow spinners to screw into. Then we put down a layer of polar fleece for padding. We lined the sides with EVA foam , this is a closed cell foam, which gives good protection. Next up is the velvet, Matthew favourite colour is green and a quick trip to Spotlight Haberdashery gets us a meter. Then we add the bow spinners. Finally some Velcro goes onto the neck and we add the foam pads for the suspension elements, so the violin floats on its frame rather than resting on the lower table. The tolerances are really fine here , as these cases weren’t made quite height enough to accomodate this, so it s a bit of fiddle with foam thicknesses to get it right .
It’s a lovely compliment to Matthews European Gliga violin, and something he can show off at school and his scout group (this was a special interest badge he did). What I like most is seeing his pride in the work and instrument it houses, my hope is to continue to foster a love of all things violin as he grows up.