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A friend of mine found a students violin at a yard sale. Little used. But, there is a crack in the headstock that keeps the top pin from tightening. I've tried pressing glue into the crack, but it's not working. It's a cheapo. But I would like to attempt a fix. The fiddle head wants to bend back under tension. This making the tuner hole to big. Can one buy replacement fiddle heads?

Ideas?

Thanks,

Mike

Yes, you can , but if you make your own scroll . at least a 16 hr job by a pro. You can buy chinese vln kits in the white from saga for under 100$./Big job to reattach scroll fingerboard etc etc. In the past for cheapies I repaired scroll cracks with titebond but if the crack is bye the peg hole a vy difficult repair.

these cracks are usually repaired by enlarging the hole with a reamer slightly, gluing in either a coil wrapped plane shaving or a correctly cut dowel and re-reaming the hole for a new peg.

you need the proper reamer to do the job.

Ok, this makes sense. I have weeped tite bond into the crack and pressured it shut. But I doubt this alone will hold it. So, shave some maple. Ream the hole a bit, wrap the glue soaked shaving around a greased peg and press into place?

Mike

you could always install one or more steel reinforcement brackets, with screws. dowels also do wonders. as far as a 16-hour scroll job, well, it is a cheap violin- you don't need some fru-fru elaborate ornament on the end of it in order to scratch out some fiddle music with it. the tension force on a violin neck is quite low, so almost any decently implemented patch or repair should hold it intact.

mike, you need a peg hole reamer tapered to the appropriate slope, and a peg shaver to cut the new peg to size, if you are not going to be doing any more fiddles won't be worth your mony, though the reamer and shaver will also serve for wooden strap pegs on guitars as well.

I realize this is just a cheap fiddle, so who cares, but screws or dowels are generally not a good way to reinforce a violin pegbox. Over time, when the wood moves with humidity, they may actually cause the crack to open again, or even create new ones, as is sometimes seen when they are repaired this way.

The string tension is not the problem, it is the wedging action of the tapered peg, and the aforementioned wooden movement with humidity, which will cause both the peg and the hole to go slightly out of round over time. So even if the peg box doesn't split, sooner or later its holes will need to be reamed and (new) pegs shaved to fit. When the holes become too large, they must be plugged and drilled/reamed, and/or get the spiral shaving treatment that crazymanmichael mentions. Sometimes the walls of a pegbox is also reinforced from the inside, or even rebuilt from the outside with new wood, if it has been severely damaged. Some modern methods of reinforcement that I have seen involve a hole saw cutter from inside the pegbox, and "inlaying" a ring of brass or carbon fibre in epoxy around the hole. Really old fiddles usually have many repairs and modifications done on its various parts, so its a good idea to keep repariability in mind, as they may need to be redone, or undone, later (that is also one reason hide glue is usually preferred for these repairs).


Skip the grease, just leave the plug in and drill/ream it out when the glue is dry.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

You can thin the pegbox on the inside and inlay a new piece of maple. Drill a pilot hole using the remaining hole as a guide and ream the hole with sand paper wrapped around the small end of the peg. Not a great technique for a fine fiddle but for a Chinese cheapie....

crazymanmichael's answer is dead on. I have posted a link that shows such a repair and the steps in some nice photos. I also tinker with violins. I have always had a fascination with them even though I can't play one to save my life.....Mike
http://www.bekkerviolins.com/node/52

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

For the record, I used the coiled plane shaving technique. Worked great. And thank you for the suggestions.

Like I said before, it's a cheapie, so an inexpensive solution was the best!

Mike