Benson Stringz LLC runs a small stringed instrument workshop at 3287 E Bengal Blvd, Cottonwood Heights - 84121-5306, United States (US), where violin family instruments and fine bows are measured, fitted and voiced one at a time. We cut bridges from seasoned blanks, dress fingerboards until the hand travels without catching, and set soundposts with the patience that a wooden arch demands. Every visit ends with a player holding an instrument that responds evenly from the open string to the last stop on the board, and see the six bench services → for the full picture.
Each board carries one service, one set of hands and one promise
A bridge is a filter, a lever and a small arch all at once. We fit the feet to the top with carbon paper and a knife, tune the heart and the kidneys to the instrument in front of us, and set a soundpost that stands without force. From the bridge bench every violin, viola, cello and bass leaves with a voice that is even across all four strings.
Read the bridge notes →Years of stopped notes carve shallow valleys into ebony, and those valleys change intonation before they change feel. We plane the board true, dress the radius, polish the camber and recut the nut slots so the string height at the first position is honest. Players notice the difference on the first scale.
Read the fingerboard notes →Sticking pegs are a symptom, not a sentence. We ream and bush the pegbox, turn new pegs to a matched taper and check the neck angle against the bridge height before any wood is removed. When a neck has crept forward in an old cello or bass, the reset is planned around the original arch rather than forced into it.
Read the peg and neck notes →Hair loses tension and grip long before it breaks. We rehair sticks and basses with ethically sourced hair, spread the wrap evenly from frog to head, and recamber tired sticks so the weight stays in the hand where the player expects it. The frog, the eye and the winding are checked at the same time.
Read the bow notes →Old varnish is a record of every winter the instrument has seen. We touch in worn edges with spirit and oil colours blended to the original ground, and we stop before a repair turns into a repaint. Structural work, cracks, seams and patches are documented photographically and discussed with the owner before the first brush is wet.
Read the varnish notes →A setup is a conversation between the instrument and the person who plays it. We measure string heights, adjust the bridge curve, move the post in fractions of a millimetre and listen with the player in the room. Chamber players, students and orchestral section players each leave with a different answer, because the right answer belongs to the hands.
Read the setup notes →Benson Stringz LLC opens its winter bench calendar with two extra restoration slots each week, held for instruments that arrive with cracks, open seams or a bridge that has leaned too long against the pull of the strings.
Ask about a slotThe workshop
Our bench sits in a converted workroom in Cottonwood Heights, a short drive from the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon. The room is dry in winter, stable in summer and quiet enough to hear a post settle when it finds its place. We keep the tools sharp, the records complete and the promises modest.
Most weeks bring a mix of student violins with tired bridges, violas that buzz on the C string, cellos whose necks have crept, basses that need a new board radius and bows that have lost their grip. Some instruments come from schools, some from family attics, some from players who have owned them for thirty years and know every scratch by heart.
Every job starts with a written estimate that lists parts, labour and the time the instrument will be away from its case. If a crack reveals a second problem, we stop and call before continuing. Nobody is surprised by a bill in this shop.
Small adjustments and quick inspections are often handled while a player waits, and we always say plainly when an instrument does not need the work it was brought in for.
Bridges come from aged maple blanks that we grade by tap tone and grain. Soundposts are cut from straight spruce, dried slowly and stored in the same room as the instruments they will serve. Fingerboards are ebony, chosen for density and stability rather than colour alone, and every board is checked for twist before it reaches a plane.
Students preparing for auditions, adult amateurs returning after a long absence, chamber groups that rehearse on Tuesday nights and orchestral players who need a dependable backup instrument all sit at the same bench. The scale of the instrument changes; the standard does not.
We photograph cracks, seams and patches, note every measurement and keep a copy for the owner. When an instrument is sold or passed down, the file explains what was done and why. This is useful for insurance, for a future repairer and for the family that inherits an old fiddle with a story attached.
Benson Stringz LLC grew out of a single workbench, a borrowed set of reamers and a stubborn belief that most instruments can be made better with patient fitting rather than replacement parts. The shop now serves the Salt Lake valley and ships finished work to players across the Intermountain West.