We have thousands of human-written stories, discussions, interviews and reviews from today through the past 20+ years. Find them here:

Search the site Search

again a broken bow. Total loss or total lost?

May 15, 2006 at 10:47 AM

My bow of 220 euro/dollar was broken and was fixed for 60 euro with a piece of ebonywood fixed with glu. But during a rehearsal my deskfellow tichs with her bow against mine and again my bow was broeken. After my work I will go to the violinmaker/luthier. Do you think my bow is totall lost/lost? Wednesday and thursday I gave rehearsals and friday and sunday 2 concerts.
My old bow is too loose to play a good spiccato. I played last rehearsalweekend on it, but it plays terrible. The tension of the wood was gone, so I think I will buy a new bow of 200 euro and hope it will not break.


2 scans of my bow now, after the glu between the ebony and the bow didn't fix any more.


2 scans of my broken bow and with the fixed ebony by the violinmaker/luthier
if you can get your luthier to not only glue it, but also bind it, it should be ok. Thankfully, the break is at the tip and shouldn't affect playability too much, so ask if they can bind it. It looks ugly, but should be a quick fix to allow you to keep playing, plus the binding makes the re-attachment stronger, so it's less likely to break again.
That happened to me with a very nice Nurnberger, but my bow guy glued and wound it, and it didn't really affect the playability.
Good luck!
Well, if you decide to buy a new one, this is the place in Duesseldorf where I bought my violin. Probably the trip is as expensive as the bow, but who knows... maybe you can make use of it some other time...

http://web2.cylex.de/firma-home/kuerten-thilo-geigenbaumstr--406058.html

I'll tell you man, seeing this pisses me off. His repair failed, and fixing it now would be a lot more difficult. I know nothing about instrument repair, but I've still picked up enough along the way to know how to do this.
...I mean picked up enough to know how to not do this. :)
Bram, your pictures are so sad. I hope that you can have the bow bound or wound so that it will work for you. What made this bow especially vulnerable to breaking? You could use this as an excuse for buying a new bow.
It has the grain running horizontally parallel to the ivory. It should be vertical, or some makers say a little off vertical in the direction of the normal tilt. Something to check for when buying an inexpensive bow.