My 5-nearly-6 year old son Grandon complained his little 1/8 violin was boring.
Mostly he meant the sound, but the grain-less orange finish isn’t exciting either, so I decided to use it for a refinishing project.
(Grandon also has another view of it – looks like a volcano eruption. Well, if 5 year old’s had money I’d be a rich violin maker. I can do eruptions!)
I ran out of finish remover and tried to cover the remains of the orange with a dark brown stain and paint artificial grain. But it kept coming off.
Frustrated I (mostly) removed that and covered it in dark red, by go-to cover-up-mistakes violin color scheme. Hmm, not bad. Scrape off the edges to give it a little definition. I was going to stain those caramel and blend it, but I decided to ask Grandon. He likes things better when he chooses.
Keep the red and nearly-white. OK, so just a little Tung oil for gloss and done, except for the waiting. Neither of us wanted to wait more than a day, so I hung it in the sun to dry.
Outside, hanging in a bush, it just looked like a tomato drying in the sun. So I asked Grandon about the name. Keep that too. Thus I present to you, the Sun Dried Tomato Violin! (Awww…, thank you, thank you, really, it wasn’t anything, just covering up mistakes)
Shuler Research 