The Homemade John Salyer Fiddle From His Childhood


This fiddle is thought to be the fiddle from J.M. Salyer's childhood, although there is no proof.  A homemade fiddle was given to John Salyer after he broke his leg as a small boy and had to spend many months in bed, this may have been about 1890.  The story goes that this was when he learned to play the fiddle.  It appears that the neck and scroll was machine made and the body of the fiddle was homemade by someone probably there in Kentucky.

Originally I was not going to have the homemade fiddle restored, I was just going to hang it on the wall.  I took it to Lafayette just for Anya to see.  After spending time with her, I decided to see if she could make this fiddle playable too.  Well, she did and it sounds amazingly good!  Here are the before and after photos and a video of Anya playing the homemade fiddle.

The before picture

After Anya worked on the fiddle.



The fiddle has a string tied to the sound post to help position the post.

Probably the neck was machine made and the body homemade.

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