Viola damage repair question

[Eric Knapp]

Hello, my daughter dropped her viola and damaged an edge a little. I’m looking for advice on a good way to repair this. It doesn’t need to come out perfect, we mainly want to stabilize it and limit further damage. This is a very good viola we got for our music major daughter.

Thanks,

-Eric

[Clay Schaeffer]

place a wetted rag on the damaged area and place a soldering iron on it (lightly) to create steam and steam the area to swell the wood back into shape. It may take awhile to steam it back into shape, but most of the wood will return to it's original shape. After it has you can saturate the spot with CA to harden the fibers. With a little bit of stain and finish touch up you should be able to make an inconspicuous repair

[Barry Daniels]

I agree with Clay's approach. It is probably not what a traditional violin repairman would do, but it will be the easiest approach to stabilize the loose fibers and seal the area. Just be careful that the CA doesn't run into non damaged areas.

[Randy Roberts]

If you click twice on the bottom picture to enlarge it, it looks like the wood is missing, not compressed.

[Eric Knapp]

If you click twice on the bottom picture to enlarge it, it looks like the wood is missing, not compressed.

That’s correct, some fibers where cut in the fall and some wood is missing. It’s more of a chip than a dent. I may still try to steam it to see if it will swell a bit.

-Eric

[Clay Schaeffer]

I clicked twice. Wherever you see varnish (however bruised) on the surface it means all of the original wood is still there. There are some missing bits you will have to build up the edge, but they are relatively minor.
After getting as much of it to come back by steaming and hardening those fibers with thin CA, You can use a wood stain marker to replace the color. and then use medium CA to build up the areas of missing wood. Most of the wood is still there and the fibers "memory", helped by steam will have them return to their original places.
When it comes to using stain markers, using a lighter color multiple times to build color is usually better than going with a dark marker to color it all at once.