Left a violin in his teens, it inspired him to make one of his own. His first efforts, single-stringed affairs fashioned from cigar boxes, quickly led to more ambitious models. He devoted all his spare time to the craft of violin-making. By the twenties he was using his own instruments when he played in orchestras and dance-halls as he frequently did in those days, and had begun to sell one or two to musicians in the district. Worked in a little shed at the bottom of his Surrey garden, he sometimes took two years to make an instrument. Principally Strad and Guarneri models, also modifications of a Joseph Rocca. Some 20 years later, a chance encounter with a violinist from the Covent Garden Royal Opera House brought him enough orders to enable him to give up his “safe” job as local coffin maker. This violinist, shown a Weller violin, asked to take one on approval, and this resulted in an order for eight more. He therefore became a full-time fiddle maker, and up to 1952 had completed 200. Experimented 30 years with various oil varnishes and colours, ultimately using one of his own formula - golden-brown, nut-brown and chestnut. A maker who really dedicated his life to the art, working to thought and inspiration rather than to eventual value.
Left a violin in his teens, it inspired him to make one of his own. His first efforts, single-stringed affairs fashioned from cigar boxes, quickly led to more ambitious models. He devoted all his spare time to the craft of violin-making. By the twenties he was using his own instruments when he played in orchestras and dance-halls as he frequently did in those days, and had begun to sell one or two to musicians in the district. Worked in a littl...
Weller,Frederick
