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Here are some proper maintenace tips for violins and violas:

- only tighten bow to about a pencil width gap between the hair and the shaft of the bow, if you tighten further than that, you could warp the bow from too much tension. Tell others in your orchestra not to overtighten either.
- ALWAYS untighten the bow, so the hairs are loose, before you put it back in the case, otherwise you could risk warping the bow.
- wipe your strings with a cloth before you put instrument back in case to prevent build-up of rosin on the strings.
- use about six strokes of rosin on your bow for about every six hours of playing. Putting too much rosin on the bow will produce less of a clear tone. Depending on the quality of the hair and age, you might need a little more rosin. (If you flick the hair a little, you shouldn't get a large cloud of rosin coming out)
- Try not to touch the hair (except for your thumb with bow hold)
- generally a re-hair is needed for your bow once a year
- generally strings are replaced once a year, even if not broken (they wear out). Depending on the brand and quality of strings, they could use replacing even more frequently.
- bring your instrument to a string shop/luthier once in a while to get instrument adjusted (soundpost, bridge), especially if the instrument is dropped because the soundpost on the inside could have moved.
- get a humidifier for your instrument for the winter to prevent drying-out of the wood which could lead to sides becoming unglued or splitting of the wood.

That is all that I can think of. The maintenance info is accurate, in my opinion, because I work at a high quality string instrument repair shop in the summer. It will let you get the most out of your instrument. I use all of these maintenance tips myself for my violin and it is always in tip-top shape. I hope this information was helpful and that you will take the maintenance tips into consideration. smile

Don't forget "Don't use furniture polish on your violin!!!" It continually shocks and amazes me how man people walk into my studio and tell me they do that. Wouldn't common sense tell you that the wax will clog the pores? Maybe not today, but it will eventually completely screw up the sound of the instrument. Also, every serious string player should know how to adjust his/her own soundpost and how to cut and fit a bridge. One of my violins is hugely picky about season and humidity levels and it seems like I'm forever having to tweak it.

Some of it is incredibly precise, but a lot of it is just scutt work. Rehairing a bow isn't that tough if you have the right tools and someone who knows what their doing has walked you through it a few times. Fitting a bridge is nitpicky, but again, more time-consuming than difficult. About the only thing that I don't do for myself is cleating cracks. Oh, and I probably would think twice about resetting the neck. I took the luthier's courses as part of my Master's Degree since my major professor thought (and I agree) that every serious musician should be able to do the maintenance work on their own instrument.

I recut and fit a bridge by starting with a good quality bridge blank. A bridge blank is is bridge you can go buy over the counter at the local music store (don't get the kind with the swivelly feet, they sound awful). Start by thinning and shaping the feet. Use some low-tack tape and attach some fine grit sandpaper to the table of your violin and start sanding down the feet by rubbing them up and down on the sandpaper. (There are flashier and fancier ways to do it, but this is completely no-fail and lowtack tape is safe enough for the length of time (10 minutes tops) that it'll be on the violin for all but the most delicate finishes.) I like a thin bridge, so I sand down the flat side of the bridge, too. Take a sharp knife and finish the curves and cutouts in the bridge. To do the top arch, put the blank under the bridge in the place you want it to go, trace the curve of your fingerboard onto the face of the blank, get out the ruler and add your string clearance and cut or sand down. There's usually a definite arch to the bridge and you should be able to easily play as many strings at a time as you want to. Put the bridge on the violin, make sure you have your heights right and the bridge sounds the way you want it to, take it out and notch the top, give it a final sanding and voila, you have a finished bridge that actually fits your instrument.

actually my teachers always loosed the strings on my violin and the reajusted the brige. Now I do the same thing and just retune my violin. And only once did my brigde break and that was with my three quart violin. Also I only polished my violin with the polish that I got with a violin care kit. the kit had a cleaning cloth, violin/viola/cello/bass polish, a tool for the chin rest and a dampit. I lost the tool but still have every thing else.

humidify. Dampits can ruin the the wood. My strings group teacher told me that its better to humidify. Also check the humidifier often so that the air doesnt get to dry or the violin will crack and the pegs will slip a lot (three quarter violin cracked once.)