I like to play a baritone or octave fiddle around the house, its a more 'domestic' sound than the 'real' violin, and doesn't fill the head with quite so many 'friskes'. I have a home made trapezoidal fiddle setup for this, but I found I needed this strung up properly.
I found
this guy making them for about £400. I phoned him up and he said he was modifying
these.
I was going to buy one (c.£230) but they were in short supply for some reason, so a further hunt turned up a 14.5 viola 'in the white' with
these guys for £93 plus p+p so I figured I try and sort this out for myself.
The viola arrived safe and sound, and with everything included except the soundpost. Pegs and tail button needing fitting properly and the bridge was supplied as a blank. I varnished it with a few coats of French polish, and fashioned a soundpost from a stray piece of pine I found in a skip in the street. Fitted it with Thomastik Oktavegeige strings.
Here are pictures from Flickr.com.
