Nissa Sampson- luthier?

An added bonus to working for the Fox Valley El Sistema is that I get to practice my woodworking skills (or lack of) on instruments that have seen an unfortunate brutal death. Since I literally have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what I am doing with regards to instrument repair I thought it would be fun to keep a blog on what I'm repairing. Hopefully a few of these repairs will work well enough that the instruments can be returned to the kiddos and have a few more miles put on them. 

As a double bonus challenge, virtually all of the repairs I am doing are ones that our local pros said weren't worth repairing. This is awesome for me in case something goes horribly wrong (crossing my fingers [please don't kill me if it does Jonathan and Chris!]) and is equally awesome if I can manage to make them work again.



First up! A quarter-sized cello whose bridge leg decided to just break off.

Luckily I had an extra little bridge to put in the cello so that I don't have to worry about the soundpost falling over while I try to put this sucker back together. 

My first thought was, "how the heck do you hold this thing together once the glue is on?"

Answer: RUBBER BANDS!

I tested out the rubber bands a bunch before deciding on a good configuration that I hoped would keep everything in place.

The picture above is the bridge after I glued it. 

Below the bridge is drying on a heating rack I made last year to start seedlings in the house for our community garden. I am hoping a little heat will help set the glue a bit faster.

I'll be putting the bridge back in the cello tomorrow afternoon and if everything holds up, returning it to the student tomorrow evening!


Stay tuned to see if I botched project #1 or if my first success will fuel me to fix all the sad broken things things!

24 hours later

Success!