Viol Bow Rehair

Viol Bow Rehair

September 2014

I’ve been busy lately with lots of regular ol’ rehairs, but recently a viol bow came across my workbench.  Modern bows (the kind pretty much everyone uses, if you’re not sure what kind of bow you use, you’re using a modern bow) require three wedges when rehairing: tip wedge, frog wedge and spreader wedge. They are all distinct and serve specific purposes. The viol bow only requires two wedges, a tip wedge and a frog wedge, and both mortices are about the same. The tip doesn’t have any reinforcement on it like a modern bow- no ivory, ebony or silver. It makes for a trickier rehair. It turned out beautifully, but I neglected to take a picture of the completed bow.