Santos Bow

August 9, 2023, 5:31 PM · Baroque violin bows curve away from the hair.

August 9, 2023, 5:31 PM · Baroque violin bows curve away from the hair.

August 9, 2023, 5:49 PM · sounds like a defectively weak bow

August 9, 2023, 7:24 PM · This interface doesn't have alerts. But I have to agree with Lyndon that it sounds like the bow is basically shot. My daughter had a 3/4 size bow like that. To get it tight enough to play the stick had to be almost entirely straight. And actually it played and sounded really good like that. But of course its resale value is less than zero.

August 10, 2023, 8:50 AM · Paul and lyndon, do not be so sure, Santos does make baroque bows.

August 10, 2023, 11:02 AM · I'm struggling to envision the adult violinist who would not know that he has a baroque bow in his hands.

Edited: August 10, 2023, 4:20 PM · In my experience a "weak" (i.e. more flexible or "softer") bow will do better with less hair.

I wish I could tell you more. I was doing "work" on this until 22 years ago and the results are summarized in an EXCEL spread sheet that was available at my website, but I shut that down 10 years ago. I still have the spreadsheet but can't recall enough to interpret it. One column has calculated values for "ideal number of hairs" for each of the 29 bows I studied. Another column has the actual measured number of hairs. All the measured parameters of the bows are also included. I wrote up (unpublished) some of the work done at that time but apparently I did not write up anything about the relationship of stick stiffness to "ideal number of hairs."

One factor I believe was very important was the effect of hair strain (i.e., stretching) on the quality of sound and for this I used an Hookes constant of

Khair = 130 N/m/m, Hooke’s constant of individual hair

(That's Newtons per meter (of stretch) per meter of hair)

based on Ashkenfelt's published result that agreed within 3% of what I had measured. Of course not all hairs have the same Hooke's constant because not all hairs are the same thickness and not all hairs are anchored equally within the bow - but what can you do?

August 10, 2023, 5:38 PM · It could simply be that the hair ribbon is too long, and/or it needs re-cambering.

The OP should take his bow to an archetier to evaluate what is wrong. In the meantime, he should stop tightening the hair.

August 10, 2023, 7:15 PM · Andrew it's too bad you didn't publish your work in some mechanical engineering journal. Your H-index would be through the roof by now. :)

August 11, 2023, 2:14 AM · A bow that had bad camber might tighten to straight, but not outward, that's either a too weak stick or a baroque bow

Edited: August 11, 2023, 6:02 PM · Paul, I did write a paper back in 2001, mostly aimed at the (then) new non-wood bows. I think I tried to publish it in the JCAS (Journal of the Catgut Acoustical Society - that went belly-up in 2004 and was incorporated into VSA). I think Ashkenfelt reviewed and vetoed its publication. I suppose I could stick it on my researchgate "page" But it is way out of date now and might be embarrassing!

I still have it in my computer (as well as my "bow calculator" spreadsheet) - if you want them, let me know. I'm getting all the H-index I could want on other old published stuff by putting it on researchgate (27 to 65 years after the papers were published).

August 16, 2023, 7:30 AM · Thanks Andrew, for noting that more flexible bows tend to sound better with less hairs. Of course such is also true for lighter baroque bows!