This is a 4/4 cello, probably made in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and more than likely German in origin. I picked this up in trade from a friend of mine who'd had it for many years in a bad state: a piece was missing from the top, there were multiple cracks (and "repairs" to cracks) on the top, side seams needed gluing, center seam on the back needing gluing, the whole thing had been half-stripped of finish, and all the hardware was missing.
Still, it's a solid-wood instrument with gorgeous flamed maple on the back and sides and a nice, thinly-cut, carved spruce top. I did all the repairwork needed (including a new section of top which I left pretty plain) and then fine-sanded the instrument all over to remove most of the prior "guck" from being half-stripped. After that I used a poly Gel varnish (I love this stuff) and applied three very thin coats, polishing it up to a satiny/semi-gloss sheen afterwards.
After that there was the usual -- missing nut, soundpost, bridge, tailpiece and tuners were replaced. I ordered this set of modern German-made machine tuners from International Violin because I'd recently had a Kay cello in the shop and really liked the ease of use.
Still, it's a solid-wood instrument with gorgeous flamed maple on the back and sides and a nice, thinly-cut, carved spruce top. I did all the repairwork needed (including a new section of top which I left pretty plain) and then fine-sanded the instrument all over to remove most of the prior "guck" from being half-stripped. After that I used a poly Gel varnish (I love this stuff) and applied three very thin coats, polishing it up to a satiny/semi-gloss sheen afterwards.
After that there was the usual -- missing nut, soundpost, bridge, tailpiece and tuners were replaced. I ordered this set of modern German-made machine tuners from International Violin because I'd recently had a Kay cello in the shop and really liked the ease of use.
The instrument turned out quite well for how it arrived. Note the huge sort of yuckily-repaired crack on the bass lower bout. It's stable and cleated but I didn't want to sand out too much of the wood to remove the discoloration from the old repair.
This cello has a nice mellow but throaty sort of voice with a good singing upper register. I'm already thinking about investing in some good strings for it (I have cheapy Chinese perlon-cored strings on it right now which sound alright but don't have as good a feel as, say, Thomastiks or similar) but they'll have to wait because of the sheer cost of the strings.
This cello has a nice mellow but throaty sort of voice with a good singing upper register. I'm already thinking about investing in some good strings for it (I have cheapy Chinese perlon-cored strings on it right now which sound alright but don't have as good a feel as, say, Thomastiks or similar) but they'll have to wait because of the sheer cost of the strings.
I know the small bone nut is not traditional, but I liked the look.
The board is ebony but has been darkened to remove streaking in the grain, so some finger wear has shown the lighter bits of the wood here and there.
I actually quite enjoy that this instrument looks more like an "old bruiser" rather than a fancy classical instrument. I played it a bit in our weekly jam session at the store today and enjoyed it quite a bit. It reminded me a little of the English fashion for playing viol family instruments for popular and folk songs a few centuries prior.
I need to adjust the setup just a bit but it's pretty close.
Here you can see that spliced in bit of new wood plus a number of repaired hairline cracks.
More cracks over here, too.
The maple is awfully pretty.
Old machines were removed at some point and patches put in place, just to have new machines installed over the patches. I'm hoping that brass starts getting tarnished ASAP.
The rear is just spectacularly flamed for such a huge piece of wood.
Note that I left some of the evidence of the stripped old finish to keep this instrument "antiqued" a bit.
Old, original endpin and rest.
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