Repairs & Restorations

Cardiff Violins started off as a workshop, originally working mainly for musicians from the BBC, the Welsh National Opera, local amateur players, teachers, and music students.

Today, the workshop is still very much at the heart of our activity, and all our customers’ instruments are dealt with in-house. We offer the following services :

Routine maintenance :

Any or all of the following work may be needed :

Cleaning
Peg fit
Fingerboard shoot
Work on nut
New set-up (See our set-ups below)
New strings
Bow rehair and cleaning
Varnish retouch
Tonal adjustment and balancing

Restoration :

This includes all the work needed to bring an instrument back to its playing condition, despite deterioration due to age, lack of care or playing, storage in damp places, worm damage, etc. This might involve any or all of the following :

Peg bushes
Resetting proper neck elevation
Repairing any crack anywhere on the body
Retouching the varnish
Resetting up
Rib shortening
New bass-bar
Tonal adjustment and balancing

Repairs :

This includes all the work needed when an instrument has been broken in an accident. It may be any or all of the following :

Neck graft
Peg box repairs (bushes)
New pegs
Button graft
Crack repairs anywhere on the body
Sound-post crack patches (front and back)
Varnish retouch
New set-up (see our set-ups below)
New bass-bar

If your instrument has been damaged in an accident, please contact your insurance company immediately to proceed with a claim. You will then need to bring your instrument over to us for an estimate of work. The quicker you act the quicker you can get your instrument back. However, repairs can take a long time. If you are insured with one of our partner insurance companies, we will lend you an instrument whilst we repair yours. If you are not insured yet for your instruments, do not wait for an accident to happen. Visit our Insurance Valuation page.

Approved repairers for the Benslow Trust

Set-ups :

Our set-ups can include any or all of the work below, depending on the condition of each fitting.

New set of pegs fitted, or existing pegs made to work
Nut corrected or replaced, to achieve correct string height at the nut end, proper spacing between the strings, and comfort of playing in first position
Fingerboard shot or dressed in order to achieve the correct string clearance, avoid buzzes, and remove any unsightly grooves in the ebony
Bridge fitted to achieve the correct string height, comfort of playing, and a balanced sound.
Sound-post adjusted or replaced, as needed
Tailpiece fitted with correct measurements
New strings fitted

With the aid of sophisticated modern electronic equipment, instruments can be played in to achieve the sort of maturity of sound that would normally take months or years to achieve.

Our bridge options

We offer a number of different bridges to choose from, to suit different needs.

Option 1:

School instruments sometimes need a new bridge, and people are reluctant to pay more than what the instrument cost them, especially if the instrument doesn’t belong to them. We may be able to adapt a previously used bridge. However, as it still takes time, the minimum charge is £ 30.

Option 2:

Good quality wood, and bridge and sound-post fitted to exacting standards to provide comfort of playing and a good well-balanced sound. This is the best option for inexpensive instruments and young players.

Option 3 : risk-free bridge

Our most popular option by far, this allows you to explore how your instrument can sound without taking the risk of having to pay for it if you don’t like it, in which case we simply put your old bridge back on and you pay nothing. This version includes the finest French bridges made to our own specification, exacting standards of fitting, instrument being played and assessed, tonal adjustment and balancing, time spent with the player to adjust the instrument to match their tonal preferences to achieve the best results.