Bad Rehair?

[anonymous12251111]

Hi guys, so I had my bow re-haired at Heinl's in Toronto, first time I've been to them for a re-hair, they've done amazing work on my bass but this was the first time I tried their re-hair services.

Firstly it was about 90 dollars with tax and black and white hair was identical in price. I prefer White hair so I said what the heck and gave them 4 days to do my bow as they were extremely busy. I go to pick it up on a Friday and the hair is black....They apologize and then tell me to come back next Tuesday as they don't work on weekends and the store is closed, they then lend me a decent bow to use for the weekend. I come back Tuesday and I notice that the hair is incredibly short...I go upstairs to the bow guy and start asking him questions such as "It's winter...the hair is going to shrink even FURTHER...are you certain this hair length is appropriate??" John explains that "a bass bow requires short hair in order to get the stick in the right tension." I didn't argue as he assured me that it would be fine. 2 days later after an orchestra rehearsal I notice that my bow won't loosen, the hair's tension remained constant and the screw just shot out the back of the bow. Luckily their was no damge this my 3.5k beautiful war horse of a bow. I then take it back to Heinl's and explain to them what happened. I asked for them to re-do the rehair but they felt it wasn't necessary so the bow guy just extended the hair somehow with me waiting there. YESTERDAY.....I loosen my bow ....or at least try to and the only way to remove tension from the stick is to take the FROG OFF...yes that hair shrunk again. I keep my room humidified so I really don't understand whats going on...I then notice that the slide where the frog fits onto the stick has been chipped obviously from the frog exerting too much pressure...What do I do now? My bow has a chip in it, I've had a horrible experience and the hair wasn't even good quality, half of it was skunked with some kind of brown hair....What should I do??

[Don Higdon]

I'm sure all your teachers know who Sue Lipkins is.
Besides making marvelous bows, she does rehairs. The finest quality hair, quick turnaround, and reasonable cost. You can talk to her on the phone about all these problems. Let me know if you want her number.

[Basschair]

Originally Posted by Don Higdon

I'm sure all your teachers know who Sue Lipkins is.
Besides making marvelous bows, she does rehairs. The finest quality hair, quick turnaround, and reasonable cost. You can talk to her on the phone about all these problems. Let me know if you want her number.

+1 on Sue. Lynn Hannings is another one.

You got a bad rehair, and I'm surprised they did nothing about it when you took it back. Either they aren't willing to admit the mistake, or just don't know any better. You should be able to remove all tension from the hair to the point where the bow relaxes back to it's full camber. The hair doesn't have to go slack (hanging loosely), but the bow should not be pulled in any way out of camber at the loosest point.

[jimmyduded]

Im surprised, my rehairs are better than that and I do them free haha, I doubt you would send it all the way to me, paul seems much more qualified, its a shame about the frog, you can buy another slide if thats what broke( I think I may have misread)

[anonymous12251111]

What chipped was the thing that the frog slides into on the stick, it's a long rectangular box that the frog fits into, not sure of the technical name, but anyways a corner of the inner box chipped off...Also...I noticed that some of the hairs in the upper half of the bow looked a totally different color from the white hairs at the bottom. They looked really really dirty, is that normal? Where should good quality hair come from? Apparently Heinl's gets all their hair from Philadelphia

[jimmyduded]

well my boss would be happy to rehair it, possibly for free, and inspect the damages if youd like?

[Basschair]

Originally Posted by Calvin Marks

What chipped was the thing that the frog slides into on the stick, it's a long rectangular box that the frog fits into, not sure of the technical name, but anyways a corner of the inner box chipped off...Also...I noticed that some of the hairs in the upper half of the bow looked a totally different color from the white hairs at the bottom. They looked really really dirty, is that normal? Where should good quality hair come from? Apparently Heinl's gets all their hair from Philadelphia

The channel that the eyelet inserts into to meet the screw is the mortise, and if it's just chipped then it's not life-threatening. If some type of stress crack was created, I'd be a little more concerned. As far as the hair goes, certain types of hair have a lot of color drift, though from what I understand it's mainly aesthetic when it's from the same batch. Quite a bit of the hair we get comes from China. Some of it is great, some good, some okay. It's the responsibility of the importers/wholesalers to gauge the quality and to sell it appropriately.

[Silversorcerer]

Wow, I think you did the right thing by posting the bad experience you had, Calvin. When a shop does work that way and will not correct it, we all need to know. I don't know if Martin Brunkalla does re-hairs or not, but he made my bow and the hair job on it is absolutely the best I've ever seen. I use black hair.

[anonymous12251111]

Thanks for the support guys. I'm going into the store today and asking them to re-do it. Personally I just want my money back but I doubt I'll get that. I just felt I needed to report this experience because a lot of stores take young guys like me for a ride.

[neal davis]

who did the rehair at Heinl, I've never had a problem getting any of my bows done, and I know most of the guys in the city seem to get it done there as well

[anonymous12251111]

john sirdevan

[frogalair]

well. so what happened with the rehair?

[anonymous12251111]

John re-haired the bow today and did a really good job. I am now once again a devoted Heinl's client,