Flat_the_3rd_n7th - Posted - 07/12/2022:  09:47:15

Awhile back, I bought a Codabow Diamond GX.  Fed Ex promptly annihilated it during shipping; the vendor sent another good bow (GB), but I was allowed to keep the trashed bow (TB).  Frog and hair intact.

So now, I'd like to rehair.  Theoretically, the TB and GB parts should be identical.  How hard would it be to replace the hair/frog on the GB with that of the TB?  I suppose the difficulty would be at the tip end.

If it's beyond my aggravation level, which is very possible, is it something my luthier could do?  I'd ask him, but you know--it's more fun to ask y'all first.

Brian Wood - Posted - 07/12/2022:  15:09:46

Whenever I've thought about learning to hair bows cooler heads (actually just my friend Dave, a luthier) have prevailed. And I don't ask him to do mine because HE finds it tedious.

KCFiddles - Posted - 07/12/2022:  18:16:13

IME it's a lot like playing the fiddle: pretty easy once you know how, but there's a learning curve, and the first attempt almost never goes well. So if you want to learn how, plan on doing at least 10 or 20 to get the hang of it, and a couple of hundred to get good if you pay really close attention. Just my point of view, but I may be considered picky.

UsuallyPickin - Posted - 07/13/2022:  05:11:38

Yeah, there are always "tricks" to any "hands on" endeavor. I would expect a great deal of swearing the first "many" times around.

farmerjones - Posted - 07/13/2022:  05:17:19

Once upon a time, there was a YouTube video how to.
Then I found there's bows conducive to rehairing, then there's bows or lesser quality, in some ways, that are not meant to be rehaired.
Wouldn't you know it, the first one I tied into, was the latter. I've done alot of stuff like this, not intimidated in the least. But in this case, I decided to let someone else do it. I may not actually need a bow rehaired in my lifetime, truth be told.

kjb - Posted - 07/13/2022:  05:56:15

i have the joule , and been playing an hour or two almost every day for 4 years and still have 98% of the hair on it. which kind of surprises me, but worth the reahairing by a pro, in the long run .

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 07/13/2022:  10:49:45

Sometimes parts can be interchanged if they fit closely enough, but you can’t expect it to always happen, especially if the models aren’t the same. It’s easy enough to check if a frog will fit on another stick, though.

If you do decide to get into rehairing, do yourself a favor and learn to do it properly! There are tons of useless and ill-informed videos available on YouTube, and they’ll at best show you how to do a mediocre job, at worst lead you to damage your bow.

UNH has a summer workshop program taught by Lynn Hannings that’s free for beginners, and Rodney Mohr, the award-winning archetier and former VSA president does workshops through his program “Learning Trade Secrets.”

Rehairing bows is in some ways fairly simple—one has to complete a number of tasks that aren’t all that difficult on their own—but if one them isn’t done right, the whole thing falls apart. The difference between a mediocre rehair and a good one is gigantic, and the way the bow feels and produces a tone can be substantially changed. This is why many players are very loyal to their favorite rehairers.

Flat_the_3rd_n7th - Posted - 07/13/2022:  11:43:36

Thanks for the responses. I'll grant that rehairing is a difficult thing, but I was hoping that maybe because I have an identical--though unusable--bow, I could simply remove the frog and the wedge at the tip and change out the whole assembly (frog + hair) easier than having to mess with the frog end also.

I would guess that the difficulty would be in getting the hair attached to the new tip, and that the process may leave the hair length off just enough to make a mess.

TPJ54 - Posted - 07/13/2022:  12:22:52

It seems that both ends are fitted, have at it!

bsed55 - Posted - 07/13/2022:  18:56:34

quote:

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Originally posted by KCFiddles

IME it's a lot like playing the fiddle: pretty easy once you know how, but there's a learning curve, and the first attempt almost never goes well. So if you want to learn how, plan on doing at least 10 or 20 to get the hang of it, and a couple of hundred to get good if you pay really close attention. Just my point of view, but I may be considered picky.

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I once considered trying to learn rehairing. But I was told more than once that its not worth it unless you're going to do a bunch of bows. KCFiddles is in agreement with that advice.

TuneWeaver - Posted - 07/14/2022:  04:07:47

If one is industrious and curious, rehairing can be a fun challenge. I never regretted trying to rehair my own bows and even had a couple turn out ok. I would NOT want it to be my only option!!

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 07/14/2022:  10:34:22

quote:

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

UNH has a summer workshop program taught by Lynn Hannings that’s free for beginners

 

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Edit: the UNH program is NOT free. Autocorrect changed what was supposed to be "great" to free and I didn't catch it until it was too late to rewrite.