I've ran across a very old bow of mine (passed down from my great grandfather who made violins) and the hairs are needing replaced. Looks like someone glued the frog hairs, frog wedge, frog ferel wedge AND abalone ALL in place. Is there a recommendation on some type of glue dissolver? This is rough! I've rehaired a newer bow (several generations younger than this one) without a problem.. I'm as stuck as all the frog sections are! Help!!
Hi i have 3 questions about rehair. 1. How to measure the proper amount of hair to use in rehair ?? By quantity of hair like 120 140 160 or weight or something else ?? 2. Is it ok for a rehair to appear to have few big gap that can see thru?? I mean those new hair dont seen to close with each other. 3. Should the hair put more in one side than the other according to which side player use to tilt their bow ?? TQ.
THanks .... I'm new to the violin and i often read 'newbie' instructions that say 'Never touch the hair on the bow!' .. so im curious as to why you run your hands over that huge bundle of Mongolian horse hair .. .. Am I missing something?
The problem with touching the bow is finger grease plus rosin equals sticky brown mess. You can often see it on older bows at the frog end. Horsehair can be (VERY carefully) washed once on the bow - non-bio washing up liquid and warm water and don't get the bow hair twisted (i.e. carefully dunk the hair and leave to soak). Then, hang to dry. Once completely dry re-tighten and rosin up. At least that's what i was told. Advice may have changed since
Since theres no rosin on the hair I don't believe the oils on his hands would build up much, if at all. Seeing how rosin is what makes the bow sticky and such.
0:39 "Longer for violin but shorter for viola" ... I play both and I can tell you that viola bows are slightly longer than violin bows! You might mean cello and bass?
I play viola but first i also played violin. If you play both, that you should know that the violin bows are mostly longer than viola bows. My story: I thought I have the longest bow in our orchestra untill the concert master showed me her bow which was 2cm longer than mine. If I had 2cm longer bow, it will not fit in my viola case. And also all viola players I know in my country sad that. I asked them because I'm going to rehair bows in our region and I need as many informations as I can get :)
In thirty years of bow making/repairing and forty years of playing, I've only ever had one viola bow (a JTL) that was longer than a violin bow. As they are of necessity built more heavily than violin bows, viola bows are slightly SHORTER to help the player handle them. As for the video - cyano ('superglue') never goes anywhere near a bow, EVER.
