u/LaLechuzaVerde

Kiddo has officially moved on to a 3/4. She is my last kid. The next child in the family, which would be my grand nephew, is under a year old so I’m not thinking that holding on to a 1/2 that long makes sense (although not totally out of the question).

It’s a good little student instrument. I forget the age as I have too many violins. It is this century though - not a vintage. We bought it used in 2023.

The bow hair has gotten pretty thin. It’s playable but the next player will need a new bow. Like most half size bows the cost of a re-hair would exceed its value. I think it’s a Glasser.

My options:

• Sell it as-is and be up front that it needs a new bow. Include some links to suggestions for a bow.

• Buy a new bow for it and sell it as a complete package (If so, do I buy a $25 CF bow from Amazon or a $50 one from Shar? Are the $25 CF bows good enough for a beginner child?)

• Put it in the closet and don’t worry about it.

• See if the local luthier shop will take it in for store credit toward future repairs or something

• Donate it to the local youth orchestra for a tax write off

I estimate the private resale value with a bow at about $150. Without, if I were buying it now, I’d pay more like $100-$115. It would probably bring in about $200-$250 as a complete outfit from a violin retailer, so I wouldn’t expect to get much trade in value.

What do you do with your kids’ old violins?

I am interested in learning how to shape and fit a bridge.

I'm not going into full on luthier mode - but I've enjoyed learning how to do other minor maintenance things on our instruments and this is something I'd like to learn next.

I see a (very very cheap) student instrument for sale right now that looks like it's in good shape except the bridge has a big chip out of it over the E string. I thought rather than screw with the functioning instruments I already own, I might buy this one and a stack of blanks and see if I can learn. I don't need the instrument but it wouldn't cost me anything other than time and less than what it costs to take my family out for fast food, so what can it hurt? It's an older Wm. Lewis & Sons 3/4 violin... so if I can get it in working order it would be worthwhile (my daughter is in this size and a spare wouldn't hurt).

I'm in it for the journey. :) I don't need the violin, I just want a practice piece to play with. Can anybody point me to some good resources? Videos?

Once I master bridge fitting, my next thing I want to learn is peg fitting. After that I think I'll stop. If I can replace tailpieces (already good at that), bridges, and pegs, then I think I'll feel like I've learned a fun and useful skill in my spare time. I'm going to leave crack repair and sound posts to the pros.

We have rented cars on Turo before, but never been a host.

We have an older (not crazy old, like 2012) 3/4 ton pickup truck. We used to have a farm and now we live in the Suburbs outside of a reasonably large urban center. The truck is no longer meeting our needs and it’s time to replace it.

Due to the high miles and the age, we know it isn’t worth much to sell. But it’s a good reliable truck that’s been maintained very well.

We’ve been thinking about buying a more reasonable in-town vehicle as a daily driver and parking the truck to only use occasionally. I thought maybe it would be a good idea to make it available on Turo because who couldn’t use a truck now and then to tow something or haul dirt or pick up a piece of furniture on Marketplace? We wouldn’t be relying on it for income. But I’m thinking we could earn back at least part of what we wouldn’t be getting by selling it, while also maintaining the flexibility of being able to use it to haul stuff now and then.

Is this a reasonable course of action to be a small time host?

So, we are scheduled to pick up a rental on Friday.

Last night (Tuesday) we were informed that the current renter ran into a deer and the front end is damaged.

The renter has the car until Thursday apparently. So we are still waiting to find out whether the car is drivable. The host isn’t being very responsive and I don’t know when he will have that answer. Apparently he is relying on his customer to take the car in to get it looked at.

Will Turo be willing to refund us so we can book something else, if we can’t get the host to either give us a definite answer or cancel it by a reasonable time today?

Tomorrow we will be traveling. We can’t just wait until tomorrow to make other arrangements. There aren’t a lot of options for other rentals on this short of notice.

Tell me I should let this go.

Someone locally is advertising a 3/4 Shen SB150 roundback. The price has just been lowered to 1500 USD.

My daughter (age 11.5) isn’t big enough for a 3/4 yet or I’d be all over it. She is using a small 1/4 now and could probably do a 1/2 but it would be a stretch.

She is always going to be petite and I know I should wait until she is done growing before I get her a full size bass so she can try it on and find one that fits her well.

But assuming it isn’t broken somewhere (and I’d have it professionally checked out of course) this looks like a darn good price for something that would carry her through high school and I hate to pass it up.

Tell me I’m doing the right thing NOT to buy a bass to sit in a corner for 2-3 years.

😭

My 11 year old has been playing upright bass for about a year (after 2 years of violin) and my 15 year old just started learning bass guitar (after about 3 years of casual learning on classical guitar).

My teen has limited ability to read staffs and mostly knows how to read tabs. My tween does not know how to read tabs but obviously reads staffs.

I’m curious about whether there are any beginner duets that might be fun for them to try together and might help keep them engaged with their music over the summer. Book recommendations? Downloads? I haven’t had any luck looking for bass duets written for both upright and guitar.

They do both have teachers. Not the same teacher. Neither teacher does both instruments.

My 11 year old plays bass and violin. We bought her an adorable used hybrid 1/4 bass which she is doing great with.

I’m expecting her to take a massive growth spurt in the next year or two but she is (probably) always going to be small. All the growth calculators predict a final height of around 5’3”.

I’m not planing to do an intermediate 1/2 bass for her since she will probably never be so big that the 1/4 will be unsuitable. When she reaches her full height we’ll start shopping for either a 3/4 on the petite side or a 5/8. Or I suppose if she never grows much we’ll try to find an unusually nice 1/2.

What I want to know is how much I should be saving up for this next bass. We’ll search used. She isn’t currently planning a music career (though she hasn’t ruled it out entirely). Most likely she will play through high school and maybe in undergrad orchestra as an elective and just hobby it after that. What’s a realistic and reasonable amount of (today’s) money I should be planning to set aside?

I’m also open to suggestions on models or features that we should be watching for when the time comes which are suitable for petit bassists. Her teacher isn’t much taller than she is and I’ve noticed that her bass is, while full sized, shaped with narrower shoulders than the other full sized basses that most of the older students play.

(USD - we live in the Midwest at the moment)

I’m on a roll

For questions this week.

I’m getting a hand-me-down 3/4 violin prepared for my daughter. It’s in good shape but it’s been sitting a while.

It’s a Karl Knilling violin. There is no year marked in it but I can narrow down the age based on the fact that it belonged to my nephew who played it about 16-20 years ago and it says it was made in Germany so it can’t be older than 1990.

The strings are at least 16 years old, and the fine tuners that were on the tailpiece were all dirty and stiff, plus they were a bad design and were marring the finish under the tailpiece. So I bought a whitner-style Fiddlerman tailpiece for it and Fiddlerman strings.

Well, it turns out Karl Knilling pegs have unusually tiny holes in them, and the Fiddlerman strings are too fat.

My options:

- I have precision tools that are entirely capable of boring out the holes *assuming* that there isn’t anything more technical in a peg hole than just, well, a hole in a stick.

- I could buy all new pegs and pay a luthier to fit new pegs to the violin. I’m not sure this is my best go-to solution for a violin my daughter will probably outgrow in a year, but it’s an ok backup plan in case I try option 1 and fail.

- I can find much thinner strings that will fit the pegs.

-

The E string was a bit of a tight fit but worked. The A string was very difficult to install. The D string was incompatible but I’m stubborn and managed to cram it in there after shaving off a little of of the outer layer of windings. The G string was an entirely lost cause - it’s just bigger than the hole no matter what. So currently the violin only has 3 strings on it.

So… is there a very thin string set or at least a single G string I should be trying?

Is there any reason why I should NOT attempt to widen the holes a little, given that needing to replace the pegs at the luthier would be an option if it doesn’t work?

I might cross post this to violinmaking.