A violin is a delicate instrument and although it doesn’t have a particularly high maintenance life, it needs tender loving care and treatment to give you years of good service and to avoid unnecessary problems. All instruments from Booths come set up, but here are some violin maintenance tips to help with the continual well being of your instrument.
Violin Maintenance Tips
Always remember to loosen the bow hair after playing, ensuring the stick stays in a curved position throughout its lifespan.
When retightening the hair, a good benchmark for checking the tension is correct is to be able to place your little finger between the hair and the stick in the middle of the bow.
After playing the instrument, try to ensure you wipe it over with a lint free cloth or yellow duster, removing any rosin particles that may lie on the belly of the violin, this is also a good way to remove sweat and grease from your fingers that may have found their way onto the instrument. When it comes to violin maintenance treatment, we recommend Hidersol varnish reviver; its gentle oil brings a neglected finish back to life.
Always place the violin back into its case after use; we know from experience how a precariously balanced instrument can easily take a fall!
Never place your violin next to a radiator or subject it to any extremes in temperature.
After violin maintenance to the body is complete, to tune your violin remember you must exercise a push and turn motion to the peg. Just turning the peg and not applying some inward pressure may result in the peg de-tuning itself.
You may experience a peg that is difficult to turn. This can be remedied by removing the peg and applying some peg paste, this helps to restore the smooth action of the peg. Subsequently, if the peg or pegs are unusually loose, once again, remove the peg. Carefully apply some powdered (crushed) rosin to the taper of the peg, ensuring the powder sits where the peg and the hole meet, this will give a grippy action to the peg. Be careful not to apply to much powder and ensure you blow away any excess as in its dust form, rosin is quite abrasive. If peg problems persist, or any other problem for that matter, see a specialist instrument or violin repairer.
We hope you found our article on violin maintenance tips useful. If you would like to enquire about a full service, click to read more about our Bolton based instrument repair service.
See also: Violin Tuning Solutions & Maintenance tips for SAXOPHONE | FLUTE |
The Booths Music repair shop is located in our town centre workshop in conjunction with Studio Circle Office Space.