Bencon 20 Epoxy Resin used to repair fine 19th century Italian violin

Matthew Wing is a professional restorer of violins and other string instruments based in Walthamstow. This can be an incredibly delicate task and instruments are often very old and of high value, so you've got to get it right! We were fascinated to learn how Matthew uses our Bencon 20 product to fill worm tracks within the body of the instruments that he restores, and the incredible care taken to get it right.

I am using Bencon for a repair on a fine 19th century Italian violin at the moment.

I have made a small copy router which I use to make models of the worm tracks from 1:1 x-rays. I cover the face of these models in clear perspex. I can then inject resin into the models and watch how the resin runs into the worm track, check and adjust my set-up and do plenty of practise runs before injecting the violin, which I only have one shot at and am effectively injecting "blind"!

I attach syringes using wooden blocks to some exit holes to pull the resin through. The clear cup at the top of the set up is at the entry point for the resin and i fill this with resin after injecting to cover any seepage which may occur. The set up is replicated on the violin.

I really like this technique, it preserves the maximum original material and the Bencon 20 works beautifully.

Please let me know if you would like any further information and thanks again for such a great product!

Matthew Wing – Restorer and repairer of fine musical instruments.

BENCON 20 EPOXY CONSOLIDANT is a two-component low viscosity epoxy resin system. The resin is of light golden colour and is mixed in the ratio 100 parts by weight (pbw) with 20 pbw of the hardener. It forms an almost colourless liquid, to provide a cold or warm setting consolidant, principally for timber. BENCON 20 timber consolidant is an extremely useful product for limited consolidation of medium to badly infested, rotten or tack damaged timber furniture or other artefacts and may be used in conjunction with BENCON 22 Epoxy Paste to re-make surfaces and even intricate profiles.