I had gotten a cheap violin to practice repair on. This is a crap violin, about 1600nt. Violin strings often cost more than this.
I leveled the fingerboard because it was not level to begin with (as you can see how the dye came off, I sanded it with a sandpaper glued to a flat piece of aluminum). After this the wood underneath came out but I only oiled it, not bothering to use shoe shine dyes to blacken it (but it can be done). The original string and bridge had to go. I had lowered the bridge too much and the string was too close to the fingerboard. Restrung with some cheap strings bought from Taobao (I cant’t afford to pay 3000NT for a new set of real European made violin strings, they really are expensive).
Now the violin doesn’t sound all scratchy like the old string did. I’m not much of a violin so I couldn’t play it like a fiddle. Maybe a violin player can play it and see how it feels?