Today I just had a school production and I was playing in a band. In one of the scenes, somebody has to squirt water on the audience, but a lot of it went on my violin while playing, and after the show I went to go check inside my violin, and part of my label in the f hole is soaked, the left and right hole a bit. Will my violin be ok?? Will the wood eventually rott or crack?? What should I do?
I'm very very angry this happened, as they did not squirt water in the previous shows and did not tell me in advance, otherwise I could of brought my cheaper violin to the shows. But no, instead they had to squirt water on my very special Mirecourt violin.
Please help🤔☹️💦🎻
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First off, I'm 99.9999999% certain there's no chance of rotting. That would need a lot more water and some biological elements as well.
I also think that cracking is a very, very small possibility. That's usually a result of the wood becoming too dry or a lot of cycles of it become warm and then cooling over a long period of time.
If you don't have the ability to get it checked immediately, I would say the appropriate course of action until you can is to carefully blot away as much of the excess fluid you can using something absorbant (I know a lot is inside the instrument but I'm sure you can improvise something).
And then allow it to air dry naturally in a cool environment. DO NOT use heat to dry it out.
As a very temporary measure until it has dried out, you could get some packets of silica gel and put them in the case with the instrument. This will draw out the moisture. But don't let it get too dry - the optimum humidity for your instrument is about 50% i.e. neither too dry not too damp.
But for sure, get it checked out by someone competent as soon as you can.
To reiterate: these measures are only to be considered if you cannot get the instrument to a luthier in the next few hours, though I should add I'm relatively confident your instrument will be fine.
Get your professional repairer to provide a detailed account of damage to the violin, and what action is needed to rectify such damage. The insurance company would require such a document.
In the meantime, if there is no standing water or droplets in the violin, I'd put it in a SAFE place at normal temperature and with a lot of air circulation, outside of the case.
The fact that squirted your violin tells a lot about how uncontrolled that action was.
And you should never, ever agree to play in a school production again.
Do let us know what your luthier said.
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