What do you do to make the scratches on my violin disappear?

Question

Help... :'(

Answer 1

If they are scratches in the varnish, definitely take your violin to a professional luthier. If the scratches are in the built up rosin on the surface of your violin... again, it would be best to have a professional luthier remove it.

Here are some excerpts regarding care and polishing, taken from a violin forum:

"If it's a valuable violin, the best thing is to keep the violin from getting dirty in the first place.

Wash your hands before playing. Wipe off rosin after playing. Perspiration and light dirt can usually be removed (as Geoff said) with a clean cloth SLIGHTLY moistened with water. If the violin needs serious cleaning, it's best to leave that to a professional.

I'm not aware of any commercial cleaner which won't attack some varnishes.

Polishes usually contain some kind of oil. Oil can penetrate small fissures in the varnish and end up in the wood, damping the sound, or making future gluing and repair more difficult. Some oil will remain on the surface and catch dirt, essentially turning your violin into an air filter. If the oil is a vegetable base, it may harden over time, forming a new "varnish" layer incorporating dirt from the air, perspiration and rosin. Yuck! This can be very difficult to remove, even by a pro!

Some people have a perspiration chemistry which degrades varnishes. The old Cremonese varnishes were particularly susceptible to this. Hand washing helps, and some luthiers are starting to use a wax developed by museum conservators. It can help isolate varnish from moisture, reduce wear if regularly applied, and has a molecule size large enough that it won't penetrate varnish or wood easily.

It used to be OK to slather on anything which made the violin look nice and shiny, but those of us in the trade are learning to think more and more like conservators, and are avoiding contaminating original finishes with foreign substances.

If it's a cheap violin, don't worry about any of the above."

"I have a number of luthier friends who maintain that one should not use a polish or cleaner more than a couple of times a year, and instead wipe the violin down gently and thouroughly after each time you play. This is going to sound weird, but the favored polish among some I have asked is Super-Sensitive - it is supposed to be the most mild, least abrasive."

"A word of caution before you start polishing, make sure you try a small section on the varnish before you apply to the whole area of the violin surface,some polish cleaners can soften the varnish surface which will smear badly...Last year I bought some Cromonese Polish formulated by Stefano Conia the well known Italian violin maker."

Best of luck to you!

Answer 2

How deep are they? If they're really deep, it's probably going to be difficult...

If they're just tiny nicks in the varnish, don't worry about it. Not much you're going to be able to do with them, and they aren't hurting anything.

If they're really deep scratches, take it to a luthier and see if they can patch the varnish or something.

Be more careful with your instrument! :S I hope you get it fixed

***EDIT***

Well, steel wool is NOT a good thing... The varnish on a violin, even if it's a "hard" varnish(hard as far as violins go), is much too soft to be using steel wool.

A violin polish might help a little bit. Try Fiddle Bright. I use it as a cleaner and really like it. I still think the best thing you could do, though, would be to take it to a luthier to see if they can do something for you.