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My grandson who plays the cello and is using a borrowed instrument found a cello minus bridge and one string in the music department garbage at the high school where he goes.
Since I am a luthier and have been for over 50 years, I generally work on violins and build guitars and original musical instruments, I thought, great, now we can set this cello up and he can play it.
It is a 4/4 size "Tom Klar, The Laurel," made in Germany for the Wm. Lewis & Son Company in Chicago. I've looked it up and it is a cheap instrument made for students, that sells for around $200.
It had a weird fingerboard. Curved as usual in cross section, but the entire bass side was ridged and abruptly slanted to a flat surface. Difficult to picture, except think of an upside down flattened out lopsided v.
Well I was able to repair the little nicks and stuff, and it really is a sturdy instrument. The kid wants to set it up with a Fischman pickup and amp it, so the quality didn't seem the problem. The problem is now when I am trying to install a standard 4/4 cello bridge, the string action would be out nearly 2 inches!. Weird. It must have had a special bridge. I find a 1/2 size bridge would be about the right fit.
Can anyone out there help me? Did this instrument have a strange bridge. It seems to me that the reason that the music department tossed this perfectly good otherwise cello out must have been that they could not fit it with a standard bridge.
I have already reshaped the fingerboard to a more standard curved shape.
I find now it seems that I have several options. Make a special bridge, adapt the cello bridge I have to the string height, use a 1/2 size bridge our local music store lent me, or try to get the fingerboard off (I tried before, and it sure was not glued with standard hide glue, because I ended up not getting it off for the life of me) But I might be able to saw it off, and then insert a curly maple wedge shaped piece that would raise the bridge end of the fingerboard at least 3/4 of an inch.
The simplest thing would be to adapt the 4/4 cello bridge that I have, but the openings that are crucial to the instalation of the Fischman Amp are not the shape that is pictured in the diagram
But I have seen other cello bridges with the right configuration.
Question? What would you do?
I could buy a new bridge with the right configuration and adapt it. Granted the strings would be much lower than on a standard 4/4 cello. Or I could take off the fingerboard and make it more like a standard cello.
I would appreciate any information you could give me
mocourage@aol.com
Barbara Lindquist
1533 Illinois Street
Racine, Wi 53405
262-634-1047

I'm planning an electric cello sometime in the next year.....

I'd make a bridge from scratch to fit.

Putting a wedge in will increase the depth of the neck and it'll be like holding a big fat thing!!

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Barbara, I have nothing to add, except, WELCOME TO OLF!

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I thought I would tell you all that I think I have solved the whole thing. I think this cello was set up as a 4/4 size with a 1/2 size bridge. Weird, but logical for a student instrument. I put the 1/2 sized bridge on with adjustable feet and it fit perfectly. I have mid range strings on the cello and I was able to fit the Fishman pickup on the 1/2 bridge. It all went together great and I tested it with an amp and it worked!!!So now I have set up a cheap electronic cello for my grandson. And I see the reason that the music department of his high school threw out the Laurel Cello was because no one could set it up right with a full sized bridge, but for an electronic cello it works perfectly. Maybe this will help someone else who hankers to have an electronic cello on the cheap. Thanks for letting me join the forum.
Barbara

I am sure that it is just that the instrument is a student 1/2 or 3/4 size. If a 1/2 size bridge works then it is 99.99 percent certain that that is the size cello as the 2 sizes I mentioned are the most common for middle school and high school.

As far as the profile of the fingerboard, that is normal as well. In violin family instruments it is common to see both "v" profile fingerboards as well as a consistent radius. On Cellos and Double Basses the "v" profile is much more common. The key is that on a violin family instrument you want string separation so that at most you are at most bowing 2 strings at the same time.

Most likely the music department got in a few instruments varying from 1/2 size to full size and as most low end student instruments is chinese made and manufactured in mass and the wrong size bridge got put on the wrong instrument. Even when a student instrument says it is made in Germany, chances are that it was made in China, unless it is an old instrument from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century.

Violin family instruments in general vary little from the same sizes that from what you describe, the instrument is probably fine but just with the wrong bridge.

Having said that the number one problem with student grade violin family instruments is that the quality control is poor and unless the top and back are laminated, you may end up with alot of movement. I have seen shipments of Student bows that arrived bent to the side looking like a banana. Part of this is that Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southern China have very high humidity and a hot tropical (steamy) atmosphere.

I posted before I saw your reply. That makes sense but it may still be a 3/4 as it is closer to a full size and there is alot of latitude in bridges with adjustable feet.

You may find that once he starts to play "electric cello" that he will be more interested in a traditional cello.

I have only built one cello and 2 violins (I normally build only classical guitars) but play a bit of everything and next to guitar and piano, cello is one of the most fun and expressive instruments to play. To get a young person jazzed about the cello have them listen to YoYo MA...While he is a great classical player he has done more for the cello by playing it in every genre of music and visibly has fun doing it.

Barbara,

Glad you got that figured out.

And welcome to the OLF!

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