Red, White, and Fiddle

I saw this fiddle come up on my eBay feed for a very reasonable price, and I couldn’t resist. While I’m not crazy about painted instruments, this one is an exception. It’s a bit quirky as it has “frets,” basically grooves cut on the face of the fingerboard acting somewhat like stops, and also has “comfort” grooves for the thumb and index at the base of the neck at the nut, which I feel like I’ve seen before. I feel that possibly I’ve seen a fiddle like this, but cannot find any other matches when I’ve searched for it. It has Kluson tuners on it with colored buttons. The red button was pretty well shot and the missing one I assumed would’ve been white, so I decided to use a piece of red heart and bone for those buttons, respectively.

This fiddle had all of its parts including the original strings, and so far I’ve only adjusted the bridge feet to fit the top better and replaced the broken tailgut. The top had come loose from the neck block, and the side on the bass side had also come loose from the block and the top and back seams. After gluing all of that back and clamping everything, it’s solid again. Action is a bit high (a 1/4” on the G and a 1/32” less on the E), but I’m a little leery to trim the bridge down just yet with the fret grooves in question with wear and such since there’s no scooping in the fingerboard that I can see, and I don’t feel it’s quite worth to re-set the neck. I thought it was full size, but upon receiving it, it’s actually a 3/4. The case is pretty cool, too, also being red, white, and blue gator skin on top.

This fiddle belonged to one Leon L. Mesler of Palmyra, MI as indicated on the case. If anyone has any info on his music side, I’d love to hear it.

I felt it fitting to record Washington’s March from Edden Hammons on it in DDAD tuning. The Fourth might be a ways off, but what’s it to hurt celebrating early?