K.H. Chapin Fine Violins

09/01/2020

I am happy to announce a new and permanent home for K.H. Chapin Fine Violins. 1172 Quinnipiac Avenue New Haven, Connecticut

Erector Square has been a fine home for the shop these past five years. The shop as has grown and grown till the large factory walls could no longer contain it's needs.

Welcome to our new home!
1172 Quinnipiac Avenue
NEW HAVEN

03/23/2020

The shop will be closed to client traffic for the foreseeable future due to the obvious world predicament. Please do not hesitate to email or call if you need to get in contact with me. I plan on using this time to build a fiddle. I suggest you use this time to Practice! no excuses now :)

09/10/2019

Introducing apprentices Maximillian and Brooke! While Kevin and Alissa are on their Honeymoon to Italy, They will be running the show.
Repair and sale services will be reduced during Kevin's absence but don't hesitate to call.

07/11/2019

For wood enthusiasts out there, here is a stump of three maple trees that grew into one. It had to come down unfortunately because it was becoming unstable. In about 1999 I actually tapped this tree and made about 9 gallons of Maple Syrup from the dozens of gallons of collected sap. Good times.

12/27/2018

K.H. Chapin Fine Violins
Behind the Music Article

K evin Chapin makes his living shaping slabs of spruce and maple into beautiful forms. But Chapin isn’t a sculptor, exactly; he’s a luthier, and the rough piece of spruce that lay on his work bench one recent morning will, sometime later this winter, become a cello. This particular instrument wi...

11/14/2018

The Shop has reopened after a long trip to Cleveland and Chicago.
I come bearing a load of finely made Arcos Brazil Bows, American made Prier Bow, & a large assortment of finely made bows by the likes of Cuniot Hausset, John Norwood Lee, Nurnberger, Prager, Marc Laberte and many more fine bows.

In addition to the bows I brought back two finely made French violins by the Mansuy family dated 1765 & Francois Pillement circa 1820.
Six older trade violins in need of repairs before sale were gathered along the way as well as two new cellos and a violin. You can imagine the car was quite full especially with my awesome assistant in life Alissa, & my two pugs :)
Glad to be back in the shop!

11/02/2018

Shop will be closed from November 3 till November 13.

09/20/2018

A friend of mine once said "Kevin, you keep getting more furniture but somehow you make your space look bigger every time." Well here is my new circa 1890s couch for the shop. :)

05/29/2018

The latest cello. Time to start on the next one!

05/03/2018

New Shop Logo! Thank you to Bryan Schiavone for turning what I had in my mind into reality.

10/26/2017

Visit the shop this weekend October 28 & 29 for Erector Square Open Studios. There will be plenty of candy to take and fiddles to play.

At the end of a long hallway in Erector Square on Peck Street, luthier Kevin Chapin sits in his shop, surrounded by tawny instruments in various stages of completion. There’s...