lucky day

Pirate Luthier update

After a bit of a drought period in terms of new violins coming in, I had a lucky day this week discovering a violin (number 38) and two violas in one lot at the Gloucester Green market. They appear to have come the same journey because all three instruments have been "decorated" with splodges of red paint. initial tests show the paint isn't water soluble so I'll probably have to leave it on.

Will share some photos once I've put strings on them. I'm not entirely against the red paint. In the meantime here's how I carried the three of them back from the market (hashtag #carryshitolympics). I'm really glad I decided a few months ago to have the big blue coop bag in my shopping bag when I go into town just in case any instruments need carrying. It would have been tricky without it:

The instruments are short of almost everything (although they do have cases and their soundposts are in place), but I also picked up some accessories from a friendly freegler on the same trip, so it will work out in the end. Will have to order viola strings though. And pegs are beginning to become a crisis. The three instruments only have eight pegs between them, and not necessarily well-fitting ones either.

 

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NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

all our Alsatian connections

My (paternal) grandparents met at Bonn, but each had a family background with (temporary) stays in Alsace and Lorraine. I knew them well, but the extent of this shared cultural background only dawned on me long after they both died.

Ironically both were born in Lorraine (just outside Alsace), but more attached to Alsace. The main connections are the railway station of Adamsweiler hosting Ruth's grandparents (after many years of migrating between other stations in the Alsace Lorraine network) and the Strasbourg love story of Richard's parents. Beyond that, they were probably unaware of additional Alsatian roots that both their families had much deeper in the past, which only came to light through recent research. I had started a list of Alsatian connections at the bottom of the recent entry about the Adamsweiler station but then realised there are around ten different stories, so they need a blog entry all of their own.

I'll separate his and her Alsatian ancestries, starting with Ruth, and having earliest stories first. On Ruth's side, there are twice as many stories, but there is a conspicuous gap between 1681 and 1870, which is the time when Strasbourg and the Alsace were under French rule.

 

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Ruth's six connections:

The goldsmith of Strasbourg, Franz Bolion von der Rosen (ca. 1552 - ca. 1620). While the von der Rosen nameline only passes through Strasbourg (coming from Liege and moving on to Winterburg), his wife, Ottilia Flach appears to be from a resident Alsatian family that also turns up in the ancestry of Albert Schweitzer through his maternal line great-grandmother Marie Madeleine Flach (1782-1847). Ottilia's father Gabriel Flach was born 1524 in Weyerthal near Strasbourg, and died 1580 in Strasbourg. Her grandfather Adam Flach was born in Schlettstadt (today Sélestat) around 1510, immatriculated at the University of Freiburg in 1538 (he might be another clergyman???), died at Weilertal after 1539. Her great-grandfather, also called Adam Flach, was born around 1480 in Meissengott (today Maisonsgoutte, Alsace) and died 6.3.1533 in Schlettstadt. So that seems to be a solidly Alsatian background, although we sadly don't have the names and origins of the women involved. The assertion that these Flachs are Schweitzer's ancestors too rests on this forum entry. As yet, I haven't been able to find the whole connection, will do a new entry when I find it.

Conon the contrarian (1546-1602) studied theology in Rostock and Strasbourg, then spent two years as an assistant priest in Mundolsheim (today part of the Strasbourg metropolitan area), before moving on to the Mosel valley. His Alsatian years must have been in the 1560s.

Conon's son in law Christian Nesselius (ca. 1576-1631), whose bio is included in the same blog entry) studied in Strasbourg as well, that must have been in the 1590s. In 1600 he came to Birkenfeld where he served as a schoolmaster under Conon's supervision and ended up marrying his daughter.

Nicolaus Andreae (1580s to 1640s) studied in Strasbourg and married there, which became an issue when he arrived in Kastellaun in 1607 as a young schoolmaster needing accommodation. He would have been at Strasbourg in the first years of the 17th century, but could in theory have overlapped with Nesselius. Sadly we don't know who the wife of the Strasbourg and Kastellaun years was and whether she also was the founding mother of the Andrae lineage at Gebroth and the widow who survived Nicolaus and married again. Probably not, considering the record of domestic violence in between. Also, considering the known background of his widow (Anna Amalia Orth), I don't see how he would have married her at Strasbourg.

Johann Conrad Arnoldi I (1628-1711) Matriculated at the University of Strasbourg 25.2.1645. Now that's what I call a clear and specific date. By 1651 he was in office in the Hunsrück area.

Cover of a timetable brochure from 1902. Source: Wikipedia.

The family of the stationmaster of Adamsweiler Christoph Gottlieb Kauer (1845-1909), who joined the Imperial Railways in Alsace Lorraine (Reichseisenbahnen in Elsass-Lothringen) after the war of 1870/71 and stayed in their service until he died. His widow and all remaining family members were evicted from Alsace Lorraine in 1919.

 

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Richard's three connections (four if I split the second one):

I had a vague memory that my Bondam / Bonnedame huguenots had an Alsatian connection, but that turns out to be Phalsbourg just beyond the border to Lorraine, a town in a German-ruled enclave founded in 1570 specifically to offer refuge to Huguenots persecuted in France. Then again, I read that after the town fell under catholic rule in 1608, many of the protestants fled to Bischwiller in Alsace. So there could be another Alsatian connection waiting to be explored.

The migrating miners and the Trimbachs are two strands that converge in the supremely unsearchable Paul Simon (1740-1813), who was born in Sainte Marie aux Mines but left Alsace to settle in Böchingen, Palatinate, where he got married in 1768. The Simon name line only passes through Alsace (Paul's father Johann Christoph Simon was born in Niederhosenbach, Hunsrück), but his mother, Maria Susanna Trimbach (1713-1752) has six Alsatian great-great-grandparents we can account for, including two local councillors in Munster and a woman born in Badonvillier. These were born around 1570. We know that the Trimbach name line came from Switzerland in the 16th century, but there must be at least some ancient Alsatian lineages among the others. Family names in Maria Susanna Trimbach's ancestry include Klein, Monschat, Saass, Fabry, Sturm. All of her ancestors with a known birth place were born in Alsace, with the earliest births in the 1540s. My 8th generation ancestor Maria Susanna Trimbach is also my strongest claim to (1/256) Alsatian ancestry. The more wobbly connection to Ottilia Flach, above, only gives me 1/4096 Alsacianicity (plus Albert Schweitzer as a bonus).

And finally, Heinrich the cellist meeting Maria at Strasbourg in 1903 and writing 160 poems for her. The other two Alsatians connections above are both via Maria and her mother. As she had grown up on the other side of the river Rhine in Bruchsal, Alsace wasn't so far away from her, whereas for Heinrich, coming from eastern parts of the German Empire, it must have been a more exotic location.

Strasbourg-Neustadt (German quarter):
the former Sängerhaus, which today is the Palais des Fetes in rue Selenick.

 

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After 1918

In September 1943, Ruth and Richard revisited Strasbourg in the awareness that the war was lost and Strasbourg might be lost and/or destroyed. Fortunately, both they and the city survived the war and we have been visiting the region quite often ever since. Might do a separate entry with old photos relating to some of those visits.

 

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

There's also a nascent index of place names here.

And here's the index of migration events.

a station lost

Update on the railway families:

I just learned that the small railway station of Adamsweiler (Adamswiller), where Christoph Gottlieb Kauer (1845-1909) spent the last 15 years of his life and career as a station master with his wife and five daughters, no longer exists. It was still standing on September 21st, 1989 when I visited the village, and it looked like this:

Own photo

We found the door where the Kauer family had posed for a family portrait around 1900, so here's my grandmother and myself in front of that door (I think it's the street side entrance, the platform side one doesn't have the extra wings on the sides):

Photo by Jörg Groß.

compare and contrast 90 years earlier:

The station master's family outside the station at Adamsweiler, around 1900. The daughters, left to right: Helene, Kätha, Johanna, Auguste, Anna. See also this postcard where family and staff stand between the tracks.

There was even a train stopping there (on the line from Sarregemuines to Strasbourg), although I'm not sure whether that was a regular service. The station building was up for sale at the time, so there definitely weren't any services happening there, but it may have functioned as an unmanned halt.

Own photo

Another descendent of the Kauer family happened to visit the station that same year in June, and even managed to get inside.

Photos by Lothar Bladt.

He told me later that he met a group of young folks from Berlin who wanted to restore the building but ran into a structural problem with the roof which they couldn't fix. So this may well have been why it disappeared.

Checking google streetview on 25.6.2026 I see lots of big lumps of stone by the roadside, ready to be removed. Apparently they belong to the quarry at the end of the station road, Carrières Rauscher.

I found some other photos online, most recent first:

In 2022, a train passes the site of the former station, some lumps of stone from the quarry also visible on the left.

In 2007, the station is still standing but the roof missing.

On this page, if you hover on the railway line next to the name of Adamswiller, a photo of the station will magically appear. The vehicles look like they may be from the 1960s/70s.

A postcard dated 1905 may well be showing Christoph Gottlieb Kauer on the right. The flirtatious messages from several writers are a mix of German, French and atrocious spelling mistakes.

Adding insult to injury, the French Wikipedia entry of Adamswiller lists the stations of Diemeringen and Tieffenbach-Struth as transport options, showing a photo of the latter which looks quite similar to the one that Adamswiller had. It doesn't even mention the station the village lost.

One reason why this little railway station was a bit more important than other properties where people lived at the time is that significant parts of the household contents are still with us, including the 20 volume encyclopedia from the 1870s, the Schiller edition from the early 19th century, and some pieces of furniture and kitchen gadgets. The house that Johanna Kauer built for her retirement has been useful for the preservation of the spirit of her childhood home.

 

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Confused about who is who? - see my name index for all things family history.

There's also a nascent index of place names here.

All things Alsatian are tagged alsace. Note that there are four separate strands of Alsatian stories in my family history (most recent first):

Heinrich the cellist meeting Maria at Strasbourg.

The family of the stationmaster of Adamsweiler (above, also tagged kauer).

The migrating miners and the Trimbachs These two strands converge in the supremely unsearchable Paul Simon (1740-1813), who left Alsace to settle in Böchingen, Palatinate, where he got married in 1768.

The goldsmith of Strasbourg, Franz Bolion von der Rosen (ca. 1552 - ca. 1620). While the von der Rosen nameline only passes through Strasbourg, his wife, Ottilia Flach appears to be from a resident Alsatian family that also turns up in the ancestry of Albert Schweitzer.

PS I had a vague memory that my Bondam / Bonnedame huguenots had an Alsatian connection, but that turns out to be Phalsbourg in Lorraine, a town in a German-ruled enclave founded in 1570 specifically to offer refuge to Huguenots persecuted in France. Then again, I read that after the town fell under catholic rule in 1608, many of the protestants fled to Bischwiller in Alsace. So there could be fifth Alsatian connection waiting to be discovered.

Update 16.7.2026: I nearly forgot to mention that four of the clergymen studied in Strasbourg, so that calls for a new blog entry with all the Alsatian connections!

a posthumous strad

Pirate Luthier update

A friendly freegler who had already donated a violin previously, came back with one she rescued from a skip, which is now violin number 37 on my logs. It had a crack in the belly so I had to open it up. The inside was very dirty so I had to clean it out quite thoroughly with a wet rag. This revealed a very beautiful flaming, showing up more nicely on the inside than on the outside:

It also gave a better view of the label which is one of those referring back to a Stradivarius model of which the violin was meant to be a copy. This one is strange though as it reads 1758. Antonio Stradivari died in 1737.

Looking even closer, just below the label I think I can read "Aug. 1899" written in pencil. It's not obvious in the photo, but turning the open violin to find the best angle for the light on the writing, I am quite confident that I can read that. Which also makes sense for a slightly dubious Strad copy.

I've now closed it again but haven't finished the setup yet, so I will update this entry once I know what it sounds like.

 

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NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

a famous cousin

One of the nuggets of family history information that have been handed down the generations ever since Christoph Gottlieb Kauer and Margaretha Imig brought up their five daughters in the railway station of Adamsweiler is the fact that the writer Johann Peter Hebel (1760-1826) was a first cousin of Christoph Gottlieb's maternal great-grandmother Maria Magdalena Hebel, born 1747 in Simmern.

Given what we know now, I am particularly intrigued by this information transfer, because our most recent Jewish ancestor, Karl Henrich Weyland, born around 1745 in Idstein, sits directly below Maria Magdalena in the Kekule list. (They both died long before Karl Henrich's daughter married Maria Magdalena's son, so they wouldn't have met each other even though they share lots of grandchildren.) Whereas everybody knew about the Hebel connection, allegedly nobody knew that Karl Henrich was Jewish.

Anyhow, the Hebel lineage has always been from Simmern, but Johann Peter's father migrated to Basel (Swiss Confederacy), so I assume Maria Magdalena may not have seen him all that often. I'll put a potted biography below. Note that he, too, like a dozen ancestors of the Kauer household and innumerable relatives, studied theology. He never quite managed to become a parish priest, but somehow found himself presiding over the protestant church of the Grand Duchy of Baden (that last bit wasn't part of the orally transmitted story).

As the story of our link to fame was handed down the generations, so were the books. I have one from my childhood, so had my father and I believe the one here on the left is from my grandmother:

And this one is signed by my father:

Johann Peter Hebel

His parents, Johann Jacob Hebel (born at Simmern, baptised 29.1.1720) and Ursula Oertlin (born 10.11.1726 Schopfheim) married on 30.7.1759 at Hauingen (Lörrach).

He was born on 10.5.1760 in Basel, where his parents worked during as servants to the Iselin family during the summer season. Their permanent residence was in the village of Hausen in the Wiesental, the home of the mother's family, where Johann Jakob worked as a weaver during the winter. His paternal grandparents from Simmern, who are also my ancestors, were no longer alive by this time: Johann Nikolaus Hebel (1677-1739) and Maria Magdalena Müller (1687-1752).

On 25.7.1761, his father died of typhoid fever, as did his younger sister Susanna, who was only a few weeks old.

His cousin and my ancestor Maria Magdalena Hebel married Christian Kauer at Simmern on 2.9.1773. I suspect that given the early death of his father and considering the distance, he may not have come to the wedding.

His mother died when he was 13. Benefactors enabled him to attend the Gymnasium Illustre at Karlsruhe from 1774 until graduation in 1778.

His oldest uncle and my ancestor Johann Georg Hebel (1708-1785), a linnen weaver at Simmern, was alive at that point, but Simmern and the entire Hunsrück area never quite recovered from the wars of the 17th century and were by that time a major source of migration to the New World, so going back to his paternal family probably wouldn't have improved his prospects.

1778-1780 he studied theology at the University of Erlangen.

From 1780 he worked as a teacher in Hertingen, and from 1783 at the Paedagogium in Loerrach.

In 1791 he moved to the Gymnasium at Karlsruhe, where he became head teacher in 1808. He remained at Karlsruhe for the rest of his life, as his wish to become the vicar of a parish in his native Wiesental area did not come to fruition.

His literary work started in 1799 when he wrote the 32 "Allemannische Gedichte" in the dialect of the Wiesental after a visit to that region. They were published in 1803 and favourably reviewed by luminaries including Goethe.

From 1807 he was in charge of saving the publication that became the "Rheinischer Hausfreund" for which he wrote the widely known Kalendergeschichten in an effort to boost its circulation. The first book version of these stories appeared in 1811 as the Schatzkästlein des rheinischen Hausfreunds (see the somewhat later editions above).

In 1819, he became the first prelate of the Lutheran state church of the Grand Duchy of Baden.

In 1821, when the Lutheran and Reformed churches of the Grand Duchy of Baden united to become the Evangelische Landeskirche, he became the first prelate of the new organisation.

He died on 22.9.1826 in Schwetzingen during a business trip undertaken in this function.

 

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Confused about who is who? - see my new name index for all things family history.

PS Since I started visiting the street libraries of Düsseldorf, I also discovered a few more editions, including:

... and this one with a dedication dating from 1925 and some intriguing illustrations:

a 3D puzzle

Pirate Luthier update

An entirely new kind of challenge turned up on the pirate luthier ship last week. On Wednesday, a new bassoonist from overseas came to orchestra, but without a bassoon. The morning after, checking up on gumtree, I spotted a bassoon for sale for £100 - or 1 percent of what you would expect to pay for a new instrument. So I couldn't let that opportunity slip by. Reader, I bought the bassoon and since we have no woodwind repair person left in Oxford I'll have a go at making it playable myself, see how far I get.

The wing joint (or tenor joint, the first from right in the photo) is bent outwards a little bit. There's a bit of mold and some rust and corrosion in some places, and a lot of silver plating to be polished, but amazingly most of the pads look ok (I've played flutes with much worse for many years!) and most things move roughly like they should. The keys do make very satisfying plop sounds when I operate the mechanics. So I'm optimistic at this point, wish me luck.

The instrument comes as a jigsaw of five parts (plus a handrest and a reed, yet to be bought or carved) and looks like this (low light photo from the first evening after I arrived home with the instrument):

The keys / holes for the fingers are reasonably similar to the corresponding parts on flutes and saxophones. The thumb side is where bassoon design has gone absolutely bonkers. Which is why players need a handrest, to free the right thumb and enable it to operate four different keys - on the flute the right thumb only supports the instrument. The left thumb has up to nine keys (photo below) but the left hand finds support in the structure of the combined tubes.

Elsewhere, the keys are more spread out due to the sheer size of the instrument, so they can be dealt with individually without too much trouble (compared to the flute where the whole mechanics is a bit of a scary jumble, which is why I haven't taken a flute apart yet):

What was underneath the first key I took off:

As the handrest is missing, I have found a suitable piece of metal for that, just torn between using a wine cork or a cava cork for the bit that is normally plastic these days.

Update 5.6.2026: Our visiting bassoonist played the instrument at orchestra this week and to everybody's surprise it actually works. A wine cork stood in for the handrest and a fellow bassoonist had a spare harness. It sounded lovely and we now have a proper bassoon section.

 

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NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

wnbr schedule 2026

The UK's World Naked Bike Ride season kicks off in 3 weeks time with the Manchester ride, so I'll compile some relevant info here. I typically get the tip-offs from this page but don't find its alphabetical order very helpful, so I am sorting everything in chronological order, as long as it can be reached from Oxford in a day trip using public transport (also including some rides abroad in places where I might be passing through by coincidence). No guarantee, obviously, do check other sources and local info.

As time passes and rides happen, I'll update the list with links to photos, press reports, and whatever I find about them.

12.6. Manchester

14.6. London - flickr group

20.6. Chelmsford (I usually don't include the Essex rides but I just noticed that this one is not too far out from London), Brussels

28.6. Cardiff

4.7. Edinburgh,

11.7. Amsterdam; Clacton - special mention because it happens to fall into the campaign for the byelection featuring Count Binface against that joker.

18.7. Cambridge

9.8. Cardiff second ride; Berlin - wow, that's a surprising comeback, details here.

15.8. Bristol - see Mark Gilbert's album on flickr. Looks like 40 riders, which is a bit disappointing compared to the Bristol rides of 2015-17.

12.9. Brighton (moved from original date 13.6.)

Own photo taken at the 2024 London WNBR as the ride passed the Victoria Memorial shortly before reaching the endpoint at Wellington Arch. .

My list of the 12 rides I participated in:

2015 Bristol (I'm here)
2016 Bristol (I'm here), London
2017 Bristol (hey that's me), Brighton
2018 London
2019 London
2023 Oxford, London (hey that's me)
2024 London (I'm here and here and here - look for the green flag)
2025 Bristol. Mark Gilbert's album contains quite a few photos of me (look for the green flag). I'm also here and here and here.
2026 Cardiff

Click on the city to see my specific Flickr album of the ride. All albums are combined in this Flickr collection.

books growing old with me

One of the perks of getting older is that I suddenly own lots of antiquarian books, although I am almost sure they were new just a few years ago. For instance, I still have a few books from my preschool childhood which are now antiquarian treasures. I think the oldest one may be the Wolkenschaf (cloud sheep):

or possibly the green parrot:

(which takes on an entirely new meaning now that there are feral green parrots in many cities in Germany and in the UK).

and then the three more mechanical ones, on the tram, the plane and the crane:

and finally the more overtly educational ones:

That pseudochronological ordering is purely subjective by how deeply buried I feel my associated memories are. Don't want to spoil it by checking actual publication dates. But may reread the book some time. I took the photos ten years ago probably to share them on my bookish blog on tumblr and just rediscovered them by accident looking for something else.

PS We put on the green stars to mark the books as German language books for our preschool children growing up bilingually.

a cello with a chip on its shoulder

Pirate Luthier update

A special delivery brought five instruments into the pirate luthier workshop at once, namely violins 35 and 36 and cellos 4-6. These instruments had been donated to a local youth orchestra but needed a bit of care to be made playable. I took on the cellos first, as there was a more immediate demand for those, so this post is only about the cellos.

Cello number 6) is a full-size cello made in Western Germany in the 1950s or 60s I would guess (see the label below). It had a bit of wood missing on the treble side of the shoulder, which I filled in. Not that I care about cosmetic repairs, but there was the risk of a player's sleeve getting caught in the sharp edge and ripping off more of the wood, so it was just an operation to make it smooth.

I also made a foot for it out of a cava cork (forgot to take a photo, but see cello 3). Otherwise it was fine, I happily played it for a week and got on well with it, so all good. The labels reveal that it was "Made in Western Germany" after Stradivarius 1713. Imported by Leslie Sheppard in the 1950s. It has now returned to the good people looking after that youth orchestra.

Cello 5) is a 3/4 cello that was brandnew and in my opinion has never been playable, because the pegs didn't fit quite into the pegholes all the way, so they didn't have enough wood surface to grip on. Which explains why at least one was absolutely unusable. In the end I widened the holes for 3 of the pegs to make sure they are functional. Similar story with the endpin hole - that was too narrow and left the endpin plug sticking out by half a centimeter. More of an aesthetic problem, but I adjusted that as well. And lowered the bridge by half a centimeter.

My overall impression was that the company that sold this instrument just plugged together the parts as they came in from different factories, without ever checking if the combination resulted in a playable instrument. That one is now also back with the owners.

Cello 4) is a half-size one which has a few bits of wood missing which I may or may not fill in and which more importantly has lost all the metal parts of its endpin, leaving only the wooden plug. So it does hold the strings alright but you would have to support it with your legs if you wanted to play it. That can be done but it's not everybody's idea of fun. Endpins come in various sizes that aren't necessarily standardised, and vendors online don't necessarily reveal the crucial measure I need to know, namely the maximal diameter of the wooden conical bit, so I am still looking for the right one to fit this instrument at a price that doesn't exceed the value of the cello itself.

endpin plug of half-sized cello 4) in comparison to the complete endpin of 3/4 cello 2), which has in fact a bigger plug than eg full-size cello 3). It's all very confusing.

NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

fiddles fixed in February

Pirate Luthier update

After crack repair, successful reassembly and setting up of the quite lovely violin number 30, I turned to some less beautiful specimens.

First to finish off the number 13 which served as a guinea pig for the repair I did on number 30. When I had it assembled and started tuning up the strings, the neck fell off, which was completely unrelated to the problems I fixed before (and just serves as another warning not to buy fiddles from Facebook Marketplace). I've refitted the neck now and the strings have been on for a few days now, so I'm hoping it holds this time.

In an effort to make the old fiddles more user-friendly to modern players, I ordered in a few tailpieces with integrated adjusters, so I'm now fitting these to the instruments that came with no adjusters or just one. Have done that for number 30 and 13 above, and also for the czechoslovakian student fiddle number 27.

Right now I'm setting up the 3/4 Lark violin (number 33) I recently bought for £ 5, which I believe reflects its value. I'm cutting a bridge and putting on new string and will have to find a chinrest for it.

All of which isn't generating any particularly interesting photos, so I'm sharing one from my early years in woodworking instead:

The funny thing about it is that I still have most of the tools from the toolset you see on the wall behind me, so I arranged them for a still life:

If I ever decide to make a violin from scratch, I'll cut the f-holes with that fretsaw ...

NB I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

a rare find

At the beginning of January I discovered a 19th century French book selling for a very affordable £ 1.50 at a charity shop and really liked the look of it so I just bought it without thinking much about it.

With a leather back and nice marbling on the hardcovers it looks like this:

It's a first edition of Le docteur Pascal, the last volume of Emile Zola's epic series of novels Les Rougeon-Macquart, from 1893. Sadly somebody cut out the family tree of the Rougeon-Macquart family which was included as a fold-out page. Otherwise it is in good condition, slightly foxed as they like to say in the trade but I love it.

More photos:

The good thing about French books in the Oxford second hand and antiquarian market is that there's supply from expats and visiting academics but virtually no demand, so I can snap up some rather amazing things sometimes (I don't do that for German books very often these days because I get them free in the street libraries in Dusseldorf, but see this one and these from pre-plague times). Abe books currently has several copies of the Zola for sale at prices of a few hundred pounds, so I think I managed to find a bargain here ...

turning violins inside out

Pirate Luthier update

Over the xmas period, I learned how to open up violins, glue cracks, and close them again. I practiced that on the not very special violin number 13 before addressing the quite lovely Guarneri copy number 30, the one which won the prize for the most beautiful case.

After the operation number 30 looks like this (still with the historic strings and tailpiece, which I'll upgrade before returning it to its owners):

In addition to the two cracks I repaired now, I discovered another two that had been repaired previously:

Note the label which says it is a copy of a Guarnerius from 1725 (as opposed to my favourite violin from my collection which is a Guarnerius from 1731). I really like the look of the inside of these instruments (see also the cello I opened up), with all the rough bits contrasting the smooth outside. Here's the inside again with my patches added:

... and the detached and repaired top from the outside:

... and the whole thing after closing up again:

After this glut of photos I'm sure you'll be glad to see the back of it:

It does have a beautiful back, doesn't it.

Number 13 (of which I used a photo in my year review) is also closed again, but it has some damage on the fingerboard which I'll have to sand down before I set it up, so I'll report on that next month.

I've now moved the list of instruments that pass through my pirate luthier workshop to a permanent page which I will update whenever necessary, independent of the blog entries.

PS While shopping for accessories for this violin, I discovered that CJ Stephens, where I buy some of my supplies, sells DIY violin making kits ...

a coconut fiddle

In december I discovered an unusual kind of two-string fiddle at a charity shop. It was lacking the pegs, strings and bridge, the body is a coconut shell with holes that seem to be carved to create the image of an angry cat (or is that me imagining things?):

I think it may be some sort of Asian instrument. The Vietnamese dan gao also appears to have an artfully carved backside (though not necessarily cat-faced). Southern coastal China and Taiwan have a coconut fiddle known as yehu, apparently, where the "ye" syllable specifies that it's made out of a coconut. The Indonesian kongahyan is also similar. If anybody happens to know anything about this sort of instrument, all hints appreciated.

As I couldn't find an exact equivalent to inform me about the set up required, I just improvised something with the materials I happened to have:

The bridge is half a bamboo ring which I previously used on violin 1) before cutting a proper bridge for it:

and the pegs are just sticks from a shrub (Philadelphus coronarius, I think) in our garden.

It does sound nice on the open strings, but the harmonics aren't all that great, so I'm now wondering whether to put the strings much closer to the stick or to add some rings around the stick as frets. Either approach would make it easier to produce higher notes by pressing down the strings. Some of the Asian instruments on Wikipedia also seem to have the strings shortened by a loop tied around the neck and pulling them down. Oh and I should make a bow for it too. Watch this space.

PS the list of instruments I have taken on for repairs is now on a permanent page which I'll update as I go along:
pirate luthier logbook