Warped Bow Advice
For many years I have had very nice pernambuco violin bow stamped D'Apres Peccate as one of my primary bows. Recently, it's developed a slight warp - about 3 to 4 millimeters to the left at about mid bow. I have other bows, but I've always like the balance and action of this bow until now. I'm looking for advice on whether it is possible to straighten this bow, or if it is time to retire it to less demanding playing and replace it with a new one? Also, does anyone know anything about this bow? I think I've had it since getting my first full size violin many decades ago and really don't know anything about it.
Replies (11)
Is it still "warped" when the hair is relaxed? Sometimes excessive broken hairs on one side, or a poorly done rehair can cause the bow to deflect under tension. Anyway, it shouldn't be difficult for a bow technician to straighten it.
Some violinists like a little warp to the left it compensates for playing more on the right hand hairs. Hold on, I think it may be the other way round! Anyway, easily bent back by a good craftsman.
Like Bud Scott wrote, a slight warp to the left is often almost "desiderable".
My thought would be: does this bother me, mechanically? or not ?......
You could even leave it as it is now........
No, no! To the right!
edit: no, I was right first time - bend to the left good, to the right bad.
Do you notice the warpage when playing?If not, and a bunch of hairs are not broken out on the opposite side, or the tension on the opposite side is not higher than on the other, just ask the person who does your rehairs to evaluate it.
Straightening always comes with the risk of breakage or damage, but we still do it all the time. I dare say that there are no old bows that have not been heated and manipulated, either to straighten or modify their playing characteristics.
As a violin maker who has made most of one bow, I'll play around straightening things that i own, but not customer stuff.
Thanks for the replies. I did just have it rehaired, but the warping was already there before hand. I was hoping that the rehair would help straighten it, but it did not. The bow is still quite playable and responsive, except in the middle where any strong martele or spiccato has a tendency to bring the stick down to the strings unless I'm very careful to rotate the bow so it is perpendicular to the strings, so I have had to adjust my playing a bit.
Take it to a real professional bow repairperson, correcting a minor warp like that is not a really big risk of the bow breaking IMHO, but you can never 100% rule out something going wrong, with a competent repairperson it should be no problem, and they should guarantee their work, IE replace it with bow of similar value on the off chance it were to break.
I say the risk is not so high, because correcting a slight warp really doesn't involve a high degree of twisting of the bow, mostly just light heating and very light bending, testing the strength of a stick can put more pressure on the stick than correcting the warp. That being said there are sticks with defects in the grain, and that would be the only possible reason for it to break other than sheer incompetence IMHO
If it warps to the left then surely the wood is further from the strings (if you incline your bow). This guy's very entertaining: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSDwglg_2ms
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March 28, 2017 at 03:54 AM · You'll want to take this to a bowmaker for assessment.