VW-5 Premium Violin-in-the-White

I purchased the cheapest model to practice varnishing and I'm really impressed with the instrument. It's definitely rough around the edges, corners need some work, f-holes are obviously cut out with some kind of router - you can see burn marks on the inner edge of them. Scroll is a little sloppy, but could be cleaned up to look nice. Fingerboard is cheap cut of ebony, but real ebony none the less. It comes with a small starter hole for the end button and it's not really big enough to look inside and get an idea of the bass bar. I may update this review once I've had a look. But even if it's bad... still not a bad deal IMO. No cracks. A few open seams but who cares. With some work from a skilled hand it could be turned into a pretty good fiddle

Quality of the wood is good. Fairly smooth already, but does need some sanding. Not everything is perfect. The saddle was off center, the neck didn't meet the body exactly perfect before it was glued on. But at least was in one piece and in good shape. This was a fun project. I liked that the end pin hole is pre-drilled, but will still needed to be reamed. Life will be so much easier if you buy a peg hole reamer to use for the pegs and the end pin hole. You will need to buy the violin fittings and varnish/finish separately. I first colored the bare wood with really strong tea. After 5-6 coats (drying in between) it was nice and gold. Then I used minwax water based sealer to seal the wood (probably incorrectly since I still got streaking). Then I used several coats of birchwood walnut stain. For the finish I used 7-8 really thin coats of birchwood truoil finish (sanding in between coats with scotchbrite). It sounds like a dying cat (ok maybe not THAT bad...I've heard worse) but don't blame the violin, because my strings are terrible and I am no expert in fitting sound posts, I was just happy to get it STANDING up. I didn't know how to fit a bridge and bought one of those "self-adjusting" bridges. It was a super fun project, and I hope to do it again soon.

I was one of the ten artists chosen to decorate violins being raffled to raise funds for the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra Education Program. We were each given an old instrument from the schools system to be used as our "canvas". But the one I was given was very shabby and "cheap" looking! So I decided if I could get one without breaking the bank, I'd purchase a proper instrument to paint. I was not disappointed. This fiddle-in-the-white was perfect! Here is a picture of my finished project entitled "Hey Diddle Diddle"!

good

Fingerboard is barely glued on. Also, there are several small cracks in the violin. Not to mention, the missing sound post. Overall, the violin is in decent shape. And it should be able to be fixed with wood glue. I dont blame the manufacturer for the cracks as it was very cold when it arrived.

Someone gouged the top with a router just above the tail piece rest totally destroying it. If wasn't bad enough there was a 2" wide section of the top where the grain was split so bad you could put your finger nail in the grooves. This violin was a total waste. I couldn't box it up fast enough to send it back.Total Junk!

High end quality with nice flame in the maple, and finely grained spruce top. A very solid and well built instrument.........Thanks

Perfect. Worked great for the violin project I was working on.