I recentely took my violin to the violin shop to change the tailpiece and they told me to watch the bridge as apparently it was about to fall down/start warping as it was too far forward!

I have forgotten what you are supposed to check, is it something like the angle between the back of the bridge and the body (tailpiece side) should be 90degrees?

I'm not sure if you mean the bridge is positioned too far forwards, or actually leaning forwards? If the latter, you run the risk of it falling over when you are tuning / playing, possibly breaking the bridge and damaging the varnish on the top of the violin. If you hold it sideways on, it's easy to see whether it's upright or leaning one way or the other.

Yes--the word leaning was missing from my first post

So you just need to adjust it carefully by holding the Feet in place and easing the bridge backwards until it's upright. If you're not too happy about doing this, you might find it easier to loosen off the strings a little - but you will probably find that you have too compensate for this by adjusting the bridge so it's leaning backwards, as tightening the strings will put it forwards again.

Or you could ask someone to do it for you!

Just look at it really - if it's facing up then youre fine! if you really want to be sure get a credit card or something and put it up to it make sure it's dead straight.
Easy to adjust it - lay your violin sideways on your lap, one thumb either side of the bridge and the top, should move fairly easily

A general rule, not just for bridge adjustment but for any small accurate movements: keep your elbows in. If something gives way, you're more likely to move less, causing less overall damage.

I was shown this when learning to carve the feet of violin bridges. A fresh scalpel blade, pulling towards your thumb, isn't something to mess with!

I think I see! THanks for help

Looks good to me!

It's not easy to be sure from a photo, but to me it looks like the bridge is rather on the thick side - this can be a cause of strings pulling the bridge forward rather than sliding over it, and a thinner bridge can also be beneficial for the sound, allowing more resonance to pass down to the belly. Thinning a bridge down is a quick & simple job for a specialist.

Looks great to me... that's really all you have to do to check if it's straight - have a look at it

Zyex strings? I've just put some on. I love them, and can easily say i much prefer them to the last set i had on which cost more than twice the price..!

You might be right but the bridge was fitted by someone well known/reputable and I am pretty sure I have not straightened it more than twice in around a year of playing so it might help if I start doing that





Yep! With a kaplan E (which seems better at not whistling) I have tried the following and I think I am going to stick with the Zyex now:

Larsen with a high tension Jargar E
Dominants
Corelli Crystals

The Corelli strings kept breaking, the Dominants I just didn't like the sound of, the Larsens were OK but not worth the extra ?10 a set

Nice I'm now using zyex with a wondertone solo E... lovely
I've tried too many strings to list - really but i think the zyex play just as well as ones twice the price and more and i much prefer the sound!

How strange. I've had Corelli Crystals on my violin for over 2 years and none of them have broken. The only one that has needed changing in that time was the E, which was changed this past Spring.

Fair enough - and bridge thickness is something of a matter of personal preference anyway. It's also appropriate for luthiers to err on the side of 'too thick', because you can always take wood away but can't put it back.

Similarly, violins set up for sale will often have a fairly high bridge, too, because it's no problem to lower it if the buyer prefers it that way.

It might be my violin or something that I do which causes it, but I always found the strings would start to unwrap somewhere between end of fingerboard and bridge, and the bow would catch the bit of the string that had started unwinding. It usually lasted about a week after that point before getting progressively worse

I think you're being too diplomatic.

What do you mean?

FTR we have clarified via pm