1951 Carl Walker 4/4 Violin

Carl Walker made violins through the '50s and appears to have lived in Athol, MA at the time he made most of the surviving examples. This one was brought in by one of his family members for repair and it got the works from Manny and a glorified setup work from myself. 

It's a nicely-made instrument with good-quality spruce in the top and flamed maple in the back and sides. It has an ebony fingerboard and pegs and an interesting, chunkier neck design with plenty of finger-spread room at the nut. The design is vaguely Strad-like but it has some quirky carving throughout.

I wish I'd had time to do videos, but suffice to say it has a warm, rich, powerful sound. The depth of the instrument's tone was completely surprising to me.

As far as repairs go, Manny reset the neck, repaired a number of loose seams, planed the fingerboard, fit fine tuners to the tailpiece, and fit some replacement pegs. I fit a new soundpost, new bridge and set it up. It's playing spot-on fast and easy and is ready to go.