Professional violinist Joseph Crean is meticulous about instrument preparation, some friends would even say over the top. So when he changed the fiddle's conventional wooden tuning pegs for geared machine heads, to allow finer control and prevent too many broken strings, he wasn't entirely happy about the colour of the grey plastic grips.

He wanted gold, to match the heads. Having drawn a blank with local bodyshops and paint suppliers, Joseph was recommended Manchester surface coatings producer, HMG Paints, which had just the material required and even offered to spray them professionally for him. Being Joseph, his violin peg paint wasn't just any finish either, but an Acrythane 2-pack acrylic polyurethane, as used on super yachts and Starchaser supersonic rockets!

London-based Joseph Crean plays Irish folk rock music with considerable gusto and fellow band members are used to him endeavouring to get things exactly right. He doesn't actually play a violin, for instance, but uses a viola tuned to a violin pitch, since the neck is wider (like a German Haff apparently). It's also strung with two guitar strings, one violin and one viola, to produce just the right sound. He also likes to finely tune his instrument during gigs, although he was struggling to tighten the strings precisely with the normal stiff wooden pegs, often breaking them in the process.

Changing the pegs to geared metal machine heads was the solution therefore, although they had to be banjo versions to get exactly the right angle to the neck. The engineering-grade plastic turning grips are now spray painted gold with HMG's high performance Acrythane, which adheres strongly to the substrate and is extremely resistant to abrasion, cleaning agents, even alcohol and perspiration, which should serve Joseph well in concert environments. It also gives a high gloss metallic finish, which was matched to the machine head body.

The Acrythane was specified and applied by HMG lab technician, Alan Bradwell, who even took the trouble to contact the component manufacturers to verify the material, which shows that Joseph is not the only one to be painstaking in his approach. Joseph is delighted with the result and is installing the new grips one by one as the strings eventually break, to avoid putting too much pressure on the bridge and neck. He is now working on some solo projects and has promised to HMG Paints a copy of his next CD, perhaps entitled 'Goldfingers'.

Further enquiries to:
HMG Paints
Riverside Works
Collyhurst Road
Manchester
M40 7RU
Telephone 0161 205 7631
email sales@hmgpaint.com