caryravitz - Posted - 03/23/2014:  14:49:24

I played for dances for four hours with Zarelon (light soloist) synthetic bow hair this weekend. I did not break any hairs and really enjoyed not dealing with broken hairs or worrying about breaking them. Peter Zaret Violins did a good job rehairing the bow (Coda GX), total $76 including shipping both ways, less than a week to get the bow back.

It's interesting how much new technology I have adopted - Perfection Pegs, Wittner chin rest, Bon Musica shoulder rest, Zarelon bow hair. Each one has solved a significant usability problem.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 03/25/2014:  13:39:34

Interesting! I just ordered a couple hanks each of the light soloist and medium-- only $4 a hank.

Haven't seen any new attempts at synthetic hair since hervex and maatzhaare came out. That must have been 30 years ago, and neither one was any competition for the real thing IMO. I can't imagine they sell much of them nowadays, as cheap as Chinese horsehair has become.

You can bet that some pretty interesting new materials have been invented since then, though, and I was kind of hoping that someone was doing the R&D necessary to find some that would suit this application.

I also see where another new brand (Coruss) is being produced in France, but haven't found anyone yet selling it in the US. Don't know if it's the same as Zarelon, similar, or completely different....

blockader - Posted - 03/25/2014:  14:36:24

Lookin' forward to your assessment, Dan.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 03/31/2014:  18:04:24

Well, I put a hank of the "soloist-light" gauge on my main playing bow (an older Coda Classic).

It's a shiny clear monofilament, (fluorocarbon, perhaps?) which melts and fuses nicely in a flame (those ends aren't going to come apart!), but doesn't scorch or burn like nylon.

Seems a little coarser than real hair.

As I do with new hair, I started by applying a "primer" coat of Pop's bass rosin-- super sticky stuff. I usually have to do this carefully, and still always break at least a few hairs of a new batch, but not one strand of the Zarelon broke, no matter how vigorously I rubbed. Then some regular violin rosin (in this case AB dark), and I played for maybe half an hour or so. It seemed to take a bit of playing to get the rosin distributed over the "hair", and a couple more applications of rosin, but so far it seems to be working very well indeed.

My first impression is that it isn't identical to the real thing, but I like it. Really grabs hold of the string and pulls the sound out. I can imagine a classical player finding it too coarse.

I have another bow needing a rehair, and will try the medium gauge on that-- That might really be some honking stuff.

It remains to be seen just how it maintains its playing quality over time, but it's already obvious that it is MUCH less prone to breakage than horsehair.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/01/2014:  07:03:32

I'm tempted to order a spool of real lightweight (like 4# test) fluorocarbon fishing line and see if that isn't the very same thing as Zarelon...

I already use heavier gauges of that very material for banjo and uke strings, and consider it as good a substitute for natural gut as you can get.

captainhook - Posted - 04/01/2014:  14:05:43

Dan,

A friend of mine, now deceased, haired some bows with fishing leader. He didn't say what type or test and I was very skeptical until I tried one. Worked pretty good and these were extremely cheap bows.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/01/2014:  19:12:35

I remember the late Garry Harrison using 2 pound test nylon fishline for bow hair, maybe 40 years ago. I figured it probably wasn't too much different from the synthetic hair available at the time (which I didn't much like at all), so didn't pay much attention, except to note his ingenuity. I was a lot more interested in his fiddling, anyway.

Further reports on the Zarelon:

Haired another bow (a 15-20 year old supposedly pernambuco imported from China by Saga-- OK but nothing special) with the medium gauge, which doesn't seem noticeably coarser than the soloist-light. Not really possible to compare on such different bows.

Generally, Zarelon feels stiffer than hair to me, and I find myself using more tension in the bow to get it to feel right than I used to. That may be partly due to some unevenness in my rehair jobs-- lacking the elasticity and water-absorbency of hair makes this syntho stuff a lot trickier to mount with all those strands exactly the same length!

I'm sure that Zarelon is denser than hair, but I'd need a sensitive scale to actually tell if there's any significant difference in weight. Even an additional gram or two would make a real difference in the bow's balance.

It does make the bow feel a bit heavier, which may be due to stiffness rather than to actually greater weight.

So far, I'd say the stuff appears to be potentially very well-suited for my (heavy-handed) style of fiddling. I might just wind up generally preferring it to the real thing, but even if I don't, will certainly want to keep a couple of bows strung with it just for its durability.

It is different enough from horsehair, though, that I'm sure some players will not find it at all to their liking. I'd compare it to taking off a set of Dominants and putting on Prims-- some fiddlers can't imagine why you'd want to do that, and others can't imagine why you wouldn't.

bubbaschnell - Posted - 04/02/2014:  07:53:56

Dan,

I'm curious what # test of fluorocarbon you're using for uke strings?  I'm getting down to the bottom of my stash of Black Hawaiian nylon strings that I use on my Bacon Banjo-uke and I'm searching for a suitable replacement.  Any feedback on that would be much appreciated.

Very interesting post, all around.

Bill

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/03/2014:  08:45:29

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Originally posted by bubbaschnell

 

Dan,

I'm curious what # test of fluorocarbon you're using for uke strings?  I'm getting down to the bottom of my stash of Black Hawaiian nylon strings that I use on my Bacon Banjo-uke and I'm searching for a suitable replacement.  Any feedback on that would be much appreciated.

Can't remember, and don't have time right now to get out the micrometer and compare what's on the uke to what's in my jumbled box of assorted fishing leader.    You probably wouldn't want to use the same gauges as I did anyway-- this particular uke had a tad of backbow in the neck and I was going for lots of extra tension to pull it straight.

The good news is that FC has become a generally popular material for uke strings, and MANY brands and gauges are available -- i.e. Martin's standard soprano uke string set is now made of fluorocarbon, not nylon!     And there's also Nylgut, which isn't FC, but is similarly way more gut-like than nylon.    

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/04/2014:  12:31:02

Back to the Zarelon....

After some further playing, I'd say the medium definitely does feel coarser and sound a bit scratchier than the soloist-light.

Antonio - Posted - 04/04/2014:  13:31:24

Thanks for the reviews!  I'm interested in trying some of this hair - I break them like crazy! and the extra grippiness appeals to me.  I'd like extra grippiness and volume with out crunchiness.   I'm curious, if the hair is stiffer, wouldn't you have to put less tension on the bow?

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/07/2014:  17:29:26

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Originally posted by Antonio

I'm curious, if the hair is stiffer, wouldn't you have to put less tension on the bow?

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In theory, that's probably true, but that would only be if you had a perfectly even rehairing job-- which as I said, is harder (at least for me) to approximate with Zarelon than with horsehair.  

Zarelon stretches much less than hair, so you have to put extra pull on the shortest strands in order to achieve a smooth, even ribbon than you would with a similarly mounted hank of hair. (am I making any sense?)

Dan Gellert - Posted - 04/07/2014:  18:13:29

The Zarelon got a bit of a real road test at a couple of good vigorous sessions last night and the night before, and I wouldn't say that my impression of it has changed any from what I've already said.

I have one new observation, however: It seems to want rosining quite a bit more often than real hair. Normally my rosin stays in the case, and if I use it before I start playing, it might only come out only once more during a dance or an evening's session. These last two evenings the rosin was in my shirt pocket, getting used maybe every half-hour or so. Not a big deal, but it is a difference....

I didn't notice a much greater-than-usual amount of rosin coming off on the strings or the fiddle, so I suspect that not as much rosin is sticking to the Zarelon as would do to hair. That makes sense-- the strands do seem thicker than horsehairs, so there must be fewer strands (though I didn't count them...), and thus less surface area. Perhaps the light gauge would hold more rosin...?

Antonio - Posted - 04/09/2014:  00:13:05

Thanks,  Dan. yes, that does make sense.  I hope you report back with any longer term observations that you have about this hair.

winterstom - Posted - 07/29/2014:  08:08:45

One nice thing about the Zarelon is that, when haring, if the strands are not all the same tension, you can adjust after haring a bit by putting tension on the bow and then heating the hair with a hairdryer and then letting cool with tension still applied.  This seems to stretch the shorter and shorten the longer for a more uniform tension.  This stuff is a real pain to rosin the first time but after that, it seems to take it very similar to real hair.