Restoration to Poggi violin

It was a true pleasure to execute a full restoration of this violin by Ansaldo Poggi, a 20th Century Italian master violinmaker known for the exquisite sound of his instruments. This violin is owned by esteemed artist David Balakrishnan, founding member and violinist of the Turtle Island String Quartet. One challenge on this restoration was to bring the instrument back into excellent condition after a lifetime of professional performance with the quartet, including extensive travel around the world. The other challenge was to restore the violin’s sound quality to the brilliance that originally inspired Balakrishnan when he bought the instrument over 30 years ago, but which had degraded and dulled over time and with the need for these repairs.

From the outside of the violin, old cracks were visibly open, and the arching had warped.

The inside of the violin told a story of many repairs and much use, as a good violin usually does. However, the cleats (the wooden “band-aids” that reinforce a crack and hold it together from the inside) were no longer supporting the cracks, and there was damage to the edges of the top from previous repairs. You can see the soundpost patch that a previous luthier put in to repair a crack there, doublings at the upper and lower blocks, and all the little and big rectangular cleats over the cracks.

The first step was to repair the edges, where in this picture, you can clearly see splinters of wood that are missing.

The images below show how new wood was added to replace the thickness of the edges where the wood was damaged. This process is call “Doubling the Edges".

Next, I repaired all the old cracks. In the first picture below, the placement of the cracks are emphasized with chalk lines. Then I fit new cleats over the cracks to reinforce the repairs, preventing them from re-opening and the glueing of the crack from failing. The last picture is the finished, repaired inside of the violin. The placement I chose for the cleats was carefully considered for best sound-quality.

Glueing the top back on.

Varnish restoration: filling cracks with new varnish, matching color, ensuring that the wood is protected.

Above are several pictures of the finished violin. Obviously, these images only show the condition of the instrument after being restored to an excellent and stable state. The other goal was to revitalize and recalibrate the sound quality and playability for Mr. Balakrishnan.

Here is David’s report about the Poggi violin, post-restoration:

“Rachael, just to follow up, as I sit with this violin, I am so deeply moved, hard to express how this feels. It’s so opened up, deep and rich sounding, back to its old self and more. Plus, omg, it is so beautiful! Elegant, well traveled antiquity look to it, like you retained and enriched its life story in its look, so to speak. All the little touches as well, like the edge doublings, the varnish touchup is amazing, and I could go on and on. It has this 'furry' quality to the sound that I remember it had when I first got it. That I didn't realize had been slowly eroded, until now."

—David Balakrishnan, founding violinist of the two-time Grammy winning Turtle Island Quartet.