This cello was falling apart, the neck was off and the top center seam was unglued, plus a lot of the seams were unglued. At first I tried gluing the top seam back together without taking it apart. I could get the seam lined up but there was a bad dip in the arching. I looked inside with a mirror and noticed that the bass bar was unglued. I took the top off and the bar was at least 1/2 way. unglued. So I glued it back on Then I glued the center seam back together. Added some cleats to the back, just in case the original glue was not holding. The center of the top was still a little flat in the center so I made some wider than normal cleats to hold the top together but also reshape the arch a little. Then I glued the neck back on. Doing all that work turned the original makers first cello back into a cello. The odd thing about this cello was that the varnish wasn't really adheared to the wood very good. There were lots of spots that had the varnish chipped off. Also when I would put a clamp on, the varnish would sometimes just create a varnish delamanation no matter how careful I was during clamping. For example, using plastic wrap, leather and then the clamp, it would sometimes just fail. Mostly on the top.
