Part of the problem is stain. It soaks into the grain of the wood and deadens it. Best to seal the grain before any varnish work.

very nicely done

Glen Larson sounds best by far. The Stentor and Aeirsi are decent, though. I also have a fiddle that I bought "in the white" and had it finished by a local luthier. It sounds way better than any commercial fiddle I've ever heard.

#4 Glen Larson. 👍

I’m interested in what your thoughts are on the sinoman violins especially there $500-$1000 range. I’ve heard some people compare Eastman and them every now and then and they seem like a good option

How would one know what type of Eastman violin they have ?

don't clean to much just a little because you can wipe the varnish off. lol Luckily its towards the frog and the rest of the bow looks good still, but I kept rubbing what looked like dirt and instead it was varnish coming off. Maybe not a tigerwood bow after all. Still looks french because of the circle shape under the frog.

Thanks you helped me remember I bought some citris cleaner called De-Solv-it. It worked great on glass and even better on my 200 year old french bows tiger wood!

Dragon is much better

The last one sounds the best

Bravo. Appreciated. Have been considering making a Fiddle and learning to play. My GGGrandfather was wounded in the arm at Shiloh. He played, though I've no idea what became of his instrument..

Glen, I see in one of your comments that you think it’s well worth opening this kit up and fine tuning the plates. Is this something you have done with this kit? I have a brand new kit sitting on my bench and hide glue ready to go. I’ve never worked with hide glue but I understand the plates should come off fairly easily.

Dear Sir, I have successfully used eucalptus oil to clean bow stick. It does not appear to remove any of the varnish on my current bows. I have also used eucalptus oil on my violin bodies without any harm. I use a mixture of white vingar 5% and t.s.p. to spray onto toilet paper thence to bow hairs to remove grease. Ordinary rubbing alcohol 70% is what I use to rid my bow hairs of excess dirty rosin. Remove frog hold stick upside down vertically and skip rope with the loose bow hairs until reasonably dry. I dont mean to litterally skip rope, just whirl the horsehair in the air like when skipping rope. This should airate the hair and evaporate the alcohol after 2 to 3 minutes of twirling in the air. Then shake out bow with frog dangling and reinsert frog into mortice in bow stick. An ordinary fine comb can straiten hairs if used gently. Hope this helps.😅

To my ears the Eastman sounded fuller smoother. Thank you for comparison.

Liked the tone of the violin in white you put together. The earlier. Stained violin sounded Skippy or wheeze. I read some where that the acids in dyes used to tint violins is deleterious to the tone. I don't know how you manage to read all those ants on the paper but am amazed if it helps.I enjoyed looking at your new Stewmack violin and thought it had decent tone. You can probably get even better tone with carbon paper if you take the time to scrape the bridge feet with exact knife. Every part that is black you gently scrape from outer edge to inner feet. You place the strings onto the bridge and apply light tension just enough to hold pressure on bridge while you massage it over the carbon paper. This will leave mark where to scrape next. You repeat this process untill theoretically all the bridge feet are evenly black. I have yet to get mine to turn out completly black but that is the goal. There should be no daylight at belly and bridge feet. My next time I hope to use thin cigarette paper and rub with number six pencil and use that for carbon paper. Hope this helps. Im still learning.

YOU did a fantastic job with building the fiddle, your inlay work impeccable. The sound is strong! I hand-crafted a Stew-Mc fiddle in 2001 I've played this violin ever since with pride & pleasure. I hand-restored a "coffin case" to.hold this fiddle. My violin has doubled purfling, ivory dots inside purfling. Diamonds in eyes, bleached cow-bone nut & saddle. Ivory bout tips top-to-back. Garners, opal, star sapphires. A special thanks to Marvin Etherton, Lupton City. Chattanooga, TN. for his skill in guiding me in doing it right. The name of my violin, "NAMATESE" ( INDIAN GREETING, "WE ARE ONE".

Nice! Merry christmas!

Wonderful. Merry Christmas.

I preferred the Glen Larsen in tone and finish. Im biased because I like the blond finish even though a classic orchestral violin is generally red amber varnish. Excellant comparison. Are all violins solid maple back with spruce top and ebony fittings or are some plywood? Out of them all I liked the Glen Larsen best. Thank you for hard work.

I bought a Strobel ML 85 at a yard sale for 100 usd. Pretty good violin but the action is so high nobody could fiddle on it .

Thank you so much for this whole series of videos. I've been enjoying building instruments (mostly kits and a few simple folk instruments), and my daughter informed me yesterday that she'd like to play violin. My wife is a music teacher but hasn't passed her violin proficiencies in ages, so I am considering pulling the trigger on this build to get a decent instrument for the adults in the home to use. The precision involved seems both daunting and super fun (in a masochistic way). I'm enjoying the whole series!

Sir! Try eucaliptus oil on the wood portion of the bow. I HAVE USED IT ALL OVER MY CURRENT VIOLIN . IT DOESNT SEEM TO HAVE CAUSED ANY DAMAGE ON MY SPIRIT VARNISHED VIOLIN. I WOULD EXERCISE EXTREME CAUSION WHILE DOING SO. I AM CURRENTLY USING 70 % RUBBING ALCOHOL ON MY HORSE HAIRS. IVE DONE THIS BEFORE WITH NO HARM. AGAIN BACK IN THE DAY I BELIEVE CARBON TET. WAS USED FOR HORSE HAIR CLEANING ON VIOLIN BOW. IM VAGUE BUT MY GRANDFATHER MAY HAVE SUGGESTED THE TET. I WOULD TRY ON AN EXPENDABLE BOW AND VIOLIN. TET NOT INTENDED FOR VIOLIN PROPER. HOPE THESE OF HELP. ALS

What size pegs did you use?

Thank you for responding. Something that truly amazed me was one day my dad was almost done with a violin except for finger board etc. He had me hold it close to my ear. He was about 10' away and he humed into another violin. The sound went thru the air and resonated the one I was holding. It was so loud I nearly dropped it. I had no idea. Pretty cool. I learned a lot from him. Take care.

My father tuned his plates using an electronic tuner. Then after gluing the pitch changes and he would make more tuning adjustments. Good video.

Wittner pegs make a violin more valuable to the player, but less valuable to the buyer.

thanks a lot for your demo!

Awesome review thank you!

Hello nice review well done. Questions, how would you compare these in sound to the maple bird's eye you mentioned in one of your videos. Since you said the back body was one piece as opposed to 2 for the birds eye.

Glen, enjoy your youtube videos and hearing about your travels in the violin world of mistakes and successes. I have had a similar travel repairing and restoring these wonderful instruments. I was intrigued with your Birdseye violin and have been trying to find one in the white. Could you tell me where you found that instrument? Keep those videos coming, they are extremely important for folks like us who only have access to the internet.😂

Mr. Larson, can you please tell us more about the Glen Larson Violin? Was it bought as a kit, and you did the varnish? May I inquire how much the kit was? Regarding your website reference, I also upgraded a Cecilio with D'Addario Ascente strings, refined the bridge, and fit the pegs. I also have a Romanian Gliga. Of the two I prefer my Cecilio, perhaps because I have more in it. I'd LOVE to finish a violin. I guess I have been bitten by the Luthier bug. I enjoy fussing with them as much as playing on them. Great demonstation! Best regards from "down south", 5 miles west of Kenly, NC.

I have some old bows I am going to play with as I learn the art. I will try your cleaning ideas.

Sir mendini mv300 or mendini mv400 better for a begginer?

Sir is stentor 1500a better than mendini mv300??

Installing the Wittner Pegs is not done until you glue the peg to the peg box. If you do not do this, the peg will not hold under the string tension.

How long have you been playing Glen?

I think the quality is in the order played, the Larson being the best. Two and three were pretty much similar. I did not like the first one!

Whats the easiest christmas song I can learn in the Violine? ❣️🇨🇭😊

I hope to learn a lot with my Stentor and than get a new hand made violine like this. ❣️

Love the vids, keep em coming

Yes the "glen" is the Best 👍

Good to hear from you!

ok

No question, I agree, the Glen Larson violin sounds the best!

Oh. I've had the same bow for thirty years (got out of playing over a decade ago) and I always thought the rubber finger grip was sticky because the rubber was breaking down. Rosin makes much more sense.

What strings are you using on these models??

I have a Stanton violin , it has great sound. Thanks for your video

Thank you good comparison. I have the VL 80 and it sounds more clear than yours on a few strings ( not muffled ) The last one you played was not balanced in volume per string. I just took out mine now and had not played for a while and I noticed the E string when plucked sounds very dead like you said but not when you play .. I do not recall that before but I have been playing guitar lately. Is there a reason /fix one string could get a somewhat dead sound ? If I twist/angle the bow a tad it sounds better. Do not know if that is normal or not I am just learning. Thank you for your review and I learned about the tapping for tone and plates .. Wow never heard of that before will look into it. BTW I am in Edmonton and the string instrument place where I took it in for the soundpost that fell out said it was an amazing violin for the price. He likes the Eastmans for the same reasons you do. He does not sell them either.

thanks

thanks