The website StringRepair.com was started by Upton Bass String Instrument, Co.  The company is more known for its work on string basses but they also deal with other instruments as well.  It has a main website but cannot house and format their portfolio of repair work photos.  Thus, StringRepair.com was created.

The website has tabs for each string instrument repair that you might be interested in.  Each on has big detailed pop out photos, even some in x-rays, and the latest completed repair projects.  It's a good thing they included a bow section as well, as this is often the one area that a player can protect himself from bad practice with a little bit of knowledge.

Other tabs on the site features their repair staff.  A quick glance at the bios will not only tell you if they have received training, but describes which method they have been schooled in for repair.  You can even find out what it takes to become a repair man in the FAQ's.

Being impressed with the site, we had to contact somebody at Upton Bass to see if they similar blogging goals in mind like ours.  We did get a response back from them saying:

"...I never intended stringrepair to be a blog...but honestly I started it before there were "blogs"!  Originally it was just a way to keep owners informed of what we were doing to their instruments.  It evolved...and it is still fun to go in and write about the repair process once completed."

[Eric Rene Roy, Luthier]

Technically, String Repair is not a blog like us but the goals seems to be relatively the same.  In our blogging goals post, we hoped that this blog could be a " tool to educate" and "create debate".  Perhaps this Q&A from their site sums up what we feel is so great about them.

"Q:    Why is Upton Bass GIVING away all of this information?

A:    Although pictures can speak 1000 words...pictures do not give you the years of hand & tool skills that must be acquired through professional training and daily practice to complete these repairs.  What we can demonstrate in 100 pictures might actually take a year to complete.  Some key steps are sometimes omitted or shown from distracting points of view.  Not every repair is as cut and dry as we present it...and sometimes we debate as a group the best possible way to achieve the results we are striving for while taking into consideration many different factors.  Our goal with this site is to create an informed instrument owner who is aware and appreciative of the amount of work and training these repairs take, and hopefully to ultimately entrust us with the work they need."

[www.StringRepair.com.faq]

We're glad to have found another shop that's adding a layer of transparency and education to the string business.  Typical small violin shops try to represent their business practices by posting estimates for repair, maintenance fees, and some educational or bio information to bolster the credibility of their repair work they do.  These guys have taken a step further by actually showing how your money is spent for the service being performed and educating customers.

Related Posts & Links:

• Self Congratulatory Post & Blogging Goals
  
• StringRepair.com

For the original posting, visit us at:  Corner Violin Shop

The other violin that I did not have time to blog about was the 2004 Sperzaga.
For the original posting, visit us at:  Corner Violin Shop

As if blogging about this old shop's daily life wasn't any more self promotional, I had to mention the nice review we got on Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog.

"Even though I've never met these folks personally or had any work done by them, I would feel comfortable recommending them to people for string repairs and purchases. This is solely due to having "met" them and learned about their projects through their blog. Blogging with honesty about even straightforward events."

You can read up on more of the lauding we receive but I'm glad Jason's pointed out one of the things we're trying accomplish with this blog.   Jason describes it as adding an honest "transparency" to the way the violin shop is run to establish customer relationships.

Well that's certainly true, we'd like to take it a step further.  We hope that Corner Violin Shop can be a tool to educate community and customers of the practices in this industry.  While we do not profess to hold the absolute "truth" on the proper and ethical practices, we want to be one of the many contributing voices in this quest for what is "right" in this business.

Not to sound too elitist though, we also want you bloggers to be a part of this mission to create debate for the best practices.  We encourage you all to respond to our posts with comments, shoot us an email with questions, or tell us your opinion on some of our commentary we post.

If we're able to get a real live debate going on this blog, wouldn't it be wonderful if other violins shops started blogging as well?  Then I could really act on my fantasy projects like starting up a blog community of string instrument shops.  What the net currently offers are more scattered directories on various social networking sites and others are not consumer friendly.   For example, Maestronet is a wonderful place for makers and shops to correspond and research instruments in the archive.  However, this site would have trouble answering the very basic technical questions that a beginning player asks, "And how do I know your repair method isn't going screw up my instrument?"

Well that's enough of my rant on.  I have the weekend off and I'm posting on a Friday night!
Hope Alex can survive the school rush that's about to hit the shop.

In closing, I'd like to thanks Jason for that nice blog post he wrote up.  If you haven't already done so, please do check out his blog at:  Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog


For the original posting, visit us at:  Corner Violin Shop

The summer heat here in Nebraska has been surprising dry while, avoiding much of the humid weather we experience.   However, August decided to catch up on humidity and started to boil the Missouri River.  This week in particular, we've seen humidity's presence as condensation on our windows.  The all year round, air conditioned atmosphere of the shop floor creates this look. From the outside we look like a green house of some sorts.  Knock, knock, is any body in there?

For the original posting, visit us at:  Corner Violin Shop

I've been a little slow on my commentary and in depth articles.  To substitute, a brief mention of a fun video for those classical musicians who dare not listen to pop.   Although a month old, the latest video to hit up some interest on social networking sites comes this one off of the MySpace video sharing site.It's the late 1990's Norwegian-Danish pop band Aqua with "Barbie Girl" , only in a classical tradition.  And a one, two, three, four, sets the beat of the lead cellist as all four of them grind away.  When that song originally came out, I couldn't stand that annoying high pitch voice and  bubblgum dance but strangely enough, that classical rendition wasn't too bad.

• Original Barbie Girl Video
• Classical Barbie Girl

A few weeks back, Lester was finally commissioned to make a double bass bow.  After some early morning hours, here's his latest bow to display.Next up, another double bass bow to boot out the door for sale. It's currently baking in the tanning booth.

We're doing some major changes to the A. Cavallo website. The static HTML information based page will still be up and running but we are planning for a PHP data driven component as well. This means visitors can search the site for keywords and even order specific items as well. You can see some of this already on our home page with a new tab called "Rentals" is added and a brief box announcement on "Online Rentals".Speaking of rentals, I got to help proof some of the language of the rental documents and take photos that are now on the website. We set up a couple of painter's lights in the show room gallery. Snapped some photos on a tripod, and they're online. Webmaster Nestor went back to fix up the shot with a soft lighting affect.

Just when we thought the lathe was a laborious effort, yesterday, a bigger package arrived.  A flatback Calin Wultur double bass was sent to us freight shipping.Again, Lester was having a field day, tearing into the latest shop inventory.  He even took the bass box for a sled ride down the stairs.

This image has been floating around for some time now so I thought I'd mention it under my Trends labels.  Hollywood's has had their fun of casting violin cases as prop devices into numerous gangster flicks.  A hitman enters the room with a violin case- that's cleverly disguised as machine gun- to meet his target and pump him full of lead.  Now, you too can pretend to kill your enemies with a ballet of bullets like they do in the movies.  Introducing: the machine gun violin. Following in the footsteps of many custom made electric violins, this is designed by artist Wei Lieh Lee at the School of Visual Arts.  The violin breaks the mold of traditional Stradivarius or Guarnerius patterns but instead opts out for the AK-47 model.

Organizing yourself in a working environment is a constant struggle in any business; in particular the physical layout of the shop.  Granted, we have a great floor space, the traffic flow for doesn't lend itself well for certain areas.  For example, the space between the bathroom and main computer already serves its crammed functions as a desk for reception, register, desk, and record keeping.  Downstairs the two main rooms functions of storing-packing and repair-setup have disintegrated into each other.  3 weeks without Les, the arrival of the lathe, and receiving too many boxed shipments has lead to a totally disorganized basement workshop. Organization of space is also key from a retailing perspective.  It's good that we have some improvements such as instrument racks and shelves to display instruments.  However, this kind of organization cannot be the only way, as things need to be flexible as time passes by.  Retailers do this all the time with their seasonal sales signs that suddenly appear on the window or a new hot item on display.  We try to do the same with display room layouts, as local foot traffic will glance and notice something new in the shop.

Some might feel, why bother?  Just stick with a system that works.  No need for this re-organization after finally settling in at home.  Some shops might object to a retailer's argument for floor space change, citing all that moving for a window shopper's peek.  Others may even claim their disheveled but romanticized old world shop appearance with an aging maker working in the back to be of a better selling point.I might say to them, hey, even if those window shoppers didn't come in, it's the psychology at work here that the shop is not stuck in the past. 

Regular customers realize this, and even those window shoppers.  Overtime, these are the people that are the first to let the locals know where to get a violin.  As for the old world view of handling customers, I personally think it's  rude to make them stumble through their workshop or wait on the shop's time because it was didn't keep itself organized.  I also think there's a bit of a laziness and lack of ambition for making these kind of arguments :)Having a bit of a slow week, we decided to chip away at a massive shop reorganization.  I got to work on breaking down fresh boxes.  Les came early in the morning to stake his new work territory to the ventilator.  A craftsman's cubicle is what he's come up with, as he surrounded himself with two benches and the new lathe.  Alex's bench was move behind the lathe.  No easy task to move his bench, as Alex had to come in during after hours and transfer everything off to another table before he could move his.

We've also cleaned up the upstairs show room to give it a more open space.  Near the window, the cases that were once on display are now on storage racks inside the studio.  In it's place is display table for all of the latest bows we have stock.  Moving this table has now really freed up the back room's showcase gallery.  For the first time, you can take a circular path around the room to examine the instruments hanging from the wall.

Receiving shipments of quad violin cases, cellos, or a double bass is all cumbersome work but today we may encountered a new heavyweight contender.  A semi-truck had parked next to the shop and dropped us off a wooden crate.

At first, I thought it was the arrival of Les' bow making tools that he had shipped from school.  But this thing was marked fragile and Made-In-China, leaking oil from from the corners of its cover.

Lester obviously knew what it was and seemed all motivated to get cracking at the crate.  With hammer in hand, he began to tear away at his special delivery package.Ladies and gentlemen of the shop, please meet your new machine: the lathe!So what exactly is a lathe?  Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines it for us:

Entry: ¹lathe Pronunciation: 'lA[th]Function: nounEtymology: probably from Middle English lath supporting stand: a machine in which work is rotated about a horizontal axis and shaped by a fixed tool

If you've ever seen how a potter's wheel works, it has some very similar mechanical principles to it but the material is worked in a horizontal manner.  The material is held in place by two horizontal axis points and spins it really fast, while a third point comes into do some precise cutting work.I thought this was some complex cutting edge machine, but little did I realize it's been around for some time.The image shows its modern predecessor during the Industrial Revolution but in fact, lathes were used as far back as the Ancient world such as the Egyptians.

Enough of the history, so why the need?  Mainly for Lester's repair jobs such as bushings, eyelets on the frogs, and button making.  He also makes tool bits used for his bow making.  Example, a prim bit he uses cuts inside the the inner mortise of the frog.  However, this little tool can't be found in the store nor can they found in a craftsman tool catalog like Dicks.  He had to make it by ironing and grinding it, a long and manual labor task.  With the lathe, less time spent and precision tools made for better work, less work, and Les happy.

For all the necessity of Lester's work, more work was required to make this work.  First, getting it transported on the dolly.  A one, two, three, lift and support.  Carting it inside to the edge of the stairs, a slow descent down to the shop basement.  And of course, this ole' lathe needs some support, a table to be built.  A shopping run out to Lowes for material and Les was hammering away.I'll do a full blown blog about the operation of this lathe in the future for any of you tech nerds and mechanics out there.  For now, we're still trying to read the instructions manual.