This week, two violins came into the shop with the same underlying problem: the wrong glue. At first glance, both seemed repairable. But the adhesive choices made earlier repairs either far more difficult, or permanently limiting. I have a chemistry degree and even did an internship working with industrial adhesives (yes, I’m the kind of person who finds watching paint dry fascinating). Guitar makers can be more adventurous with glues — and often brilliantly so — but it's imp

What happens when the only spare string before a concert is the wrong size? The video that got me thinking... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hXjuQDTxis It’s the nightmare scenario: you’re packing up for a concert, and a string breaks . A friend saves the day by offering a spare… but it’s for a full‑size violin , and you play a three‑quarter size . So the obvious question: Can you use it? The short, practical answer is yes — in a pinch, it will work . The violin will tune up

As I started my violin shop, I had all types of repair requests coming in. Some were quite complex, like resetting a neck that had come unglued, while others were simply fixing a collapsed bridge. I love helping people make their instrument sing again, but some people are intimidated by what they might think of as a costly repair, when the reality is they could probably fix it on their own. Just like car maintenance, some people prefer to trust their investment to the experts

As I walk up to a work station at my day job holding a clipboard and stopwatch, I notice the operators tense up. I can guess what's going...

One unique service that I offer as a luthier is a seasonal check and clean. I do this at a very discounted rate for the amount of work...

Lean manufacturing is a concept often associated with modern manufacturing, as it started with Taiichi Ohno and Toyota, spreading quickly...

I recently created an inlay design on a music box top for my daughter. My previous inlays have either been really small, such as on...

One of the natural parts of progressing as a musician is encountering more interesting key signatures, more and more sharps and...

Jessica and I recently spent a wonderful weekend at the Winter School put on by the Celtic Arts Foundation in Seabeck, WA, attending...

My formal education is in chemistry and chemical engineering. So, naturally, I'm enchanted with the mystery of violin varnish. This is...