Re-hairing a renaissance bow?

[Charlie Schultz]

Hi all,
I'm just wondering how hard/expensive it is to rehair a bow myself. This is a renaissance viola da gamba bow, probably student grade.

Thanks,
Charlie

[Jim McConkey]

I've never tried rehairing a gamba bow, but I have rehaired a violin bow. It was not that difficult to get a decent result if you take your time. Years ago our own Amy Hopkins (correction: it was Craig Tucker!) taught an MIMF class on rehairing. I don't think the courses were archived, but there may be some discussions in the Library.

[Peter Wilcox]

Good luck. Years ago I rehaired a violin bow with synthetic hair and as I remember it went OK. I tried rehairing a bass bow from the tail of one of our horses, and it was a complete disaster.

[Karl Wicklund]

Complete disaster in what way? I don’t quite believe I’d ever do it myself, but I’m curious.

[Peter Wilcox]

It was many decades ago, before the WWW and online instructions/videos, and I didn't know what I was doing - I mean, how hard could it be? The synthetic hair came prepared for installation, so I was lucky, though it was probably a pretty crappy job. The horse's hair was individual strands, and I knew nothing about preparing, controlling and installing it, so it was not even in appearance or tension. I think I just got frustrated and threw it out.

Here's a video on how to do it - would have helped back then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWwvGOKC6K8

[Karl Wicklund]

Gotcha. I watched an acquaintance rehair his bow several years ago - lots of steps I wouldn’t have imagined - a total disaster makes sense.