Continuing adventures with varnish remover

Stripping the front presented new challenges, as I had to avoid dripping caustic goo through the f-holes. I was more confident with said goo overall though, and it went faster than the back. I got gloves, too, which sped things up as I could be a little more cavalier. The goo is truly vicious. It burns to the touch (probably useful, as you’re disinclined to leave it on your skin long enough to cause much damage) and I’m pretty sure the fumes from today killed the equivalent in brain cells of a solid two-week bender.

The sides were a trickier job still, the varnish didn’t peel as readily and I ended up having to sand some large patches of it off. I’m not sure if it was applied thicker in the first place, or just not subject to the wear that the top & bottom had been. I haven’t finished the sanding yet, I’ll post photos when the whole fiddle is nude…

Stripping

This next mod is purely aesthetic. I’ve wanted a blonde fiddle for some time, and was not at all atttached to the garish orange my fiddle came with, so I got a tub of varnish stripper and set to (after giggling for a bit over the fact that it was called “super strippa”). When the first coat began to bubble and peel I was a bit stunned – I hadn’t expected it to, y’know, actually work. It looked like a high-speed video of fungus growing.

It took four applications and lots of vigorous scraping to clear the back. I’m leaving the front and sides for another time, I’m a little worried about melting the joint glue with the stripper and I’m going to approach the edges with more care.

Some quality time with a few levels of sandpaper and I got it here…

The purfling (double stripe of inlay around the edge of a violin) was just painted on so it came off with the varnish. I’d like to have purfling on my fiddle but painting it back on seems pretty cheesy, I’m wondering about inlaying silver wire… that’s a ways off, though.