Appalachian Violin Company is my new offshoot of Gianna's, which I will be phasing out. Gianna is long gone and I have no intention of opening up a new general-purpose venture. Although who knows - I'm checking out a space in Chicago in the heart of violin land! If I live downtown, it will do for violins. If I end up south side then there are reasonable retail spaces available. Anyway.
In developing the new line, we purchased (we is Rebecca and I, but she got one of those real job things) several instruments to complement the instruments we had on hand. These were used as test beds for refining my standard, too complicated graduation, tuning, and varnishing systems. We also tried an International Violin Company system for varnishing on a couple of instruments. Rebecca wanted to learn varnishing so we got a cheap instrument. This is it. A $155 Chinese violin in the white. You can find it on their site.
I disassembled, graduated with a lightly cut (his is deep hole intensive) version of the Jack Fry graduation from the "Secrets of Cremona" book, reassembled, shaped neck very nicely. She varnished mostly, and I finished up. It's in a golden amber Joha varnish, with grain enhancing stuff (IV no. 420), no mineral ground, color in the varnish. Nice oil varnish. Was a bit harsh looking, so I buffed with rottenstone and gently shaded with a bit of umber (high-end Cyprus umber), then put on the IV clear topcoats. Rubbed out and then polished with a French polish technique using my own super cool spirit type varnish (lots of mastic).
Set up currently (subject to adjustment for you) with nice ebony pegs and tailpiece, one fine tuner, an old Guarneri chinrest I had around, Despiau bridge, hand split soundpost, Tonica strings. Can be set with steel strings, bridge lowered, whatever you like. Might introduce delivery delay. Here's about what I have in this thing, other than time.
Instrument: $155
Varnish: $30
Pegs: $3.50
Tailpiece: $6
Fine tuner: $2.50
Strings: $22
Bridge: $3
Endpin: $0.50
I've also got perhaps 3 or 4 hours of intense shop work in disassembling, graduating, barring, shaping, setup, adjusting for tone and so on. Rebecca has a few hours in varnishing, and I probably have 90 minutes on top of that. So this instrument is quite a production.
It sounds surprisingly big, relatively mellow, fast response, even tone, balanced, clear. I'm very pleased.
But it's not perfect, by any means. I haven't looked for imperfections, but notice a few glitches from manufacture around the edge of the top, some varnish irregularities, and I had to cut the bridge a bit differently from usual to accommodate the neck/body/F hole relationship. But it's lighter than usual (both bridge and violin) and works very well.
Don't hesitate to call or ask questions.
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