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Double Bass bow making?

#24
martin, good story..the tropics are resilient,so are the temperate forest,they'll continue to provide.
along the same line..turn of the century sheep herder in portugal spends his days poking a hole in the ground with a stick,drops a cork oak acorn in from a sack... shuts with foot. did this everyday for 60 yrs. we still import cork from this mans' efforts. don't get me started on johny (appleseed) chapmin:)
 
#32
On the pernambuco topic:
It's definitely endangered, and not necessarily by bowmakers. Swaths of land in Brazil are being cleared for development, for farming, and for agriculture in general of "cash crops." There is a huge push going on by Greenpeace (I believe) to have it classified as near extinct so that it can't be cut at all. Ironically, this will devalue the tree to the point where there's no impetus to keep it around for locals in Brazil. Bowmakers still use Pernambuco because it is a great wood to use. People learning how to make bows should not be using pernambuco, IMO (as well as in others' opinions).

As for other woods...

Wamara
Massaranduba (beefwood or bulletwood)
Osage Orange
Bloodwood (satine)
Amourette (unfigured snakewood...less expensive than figured, and more common)
Ipe (pau d'arco)
Swartzia (I just read about this and it's similar physical/mechanical properties to pernambuco)

Bloodwood is probably the easiest to find (in my experience). Every Woodcraft store I've ever been to has had bloodwood lumber. Get it with straight grain and it's good stuff.

I'd definitely recommend going to one of Lynn's classes. That way, you'd learn a traditional approach to bowmaking: hands-on, planes and chisels. Then you could go home and figure your own approach based on the general ideology of the old methods.
 
#34
...when hundreds of years have helped developed something as challenging, artistic and intuitive/scientific as bowmaking. I have a friend who I've watched spend the last 8 years trying to invent things to make the upright bass easier to play. I watched him try to reinvent the wheel over and over and every once in awhile suggested that perhaps intstead he should "just spend the time learning to play!" I see absolutely no improvement in his playing in the last 8 years and to my ears he has yet to even develop a sound. My point is: yes, buck convention, get inspired, forge ahead but do so with great humility and perspective. Otherwise, unless you happen to be a genius along the lines of a Leodardo Di Vinci, you will waste your time. I don't think anyone is really trying to discourage Jimmy, just help him to save some time and realize that the fastest way to get to where he is going is training and a lot of it. Reid Hudson teaches a class in bowmaking. He might start there.
 
#35
A week or two ago the CBC radio was interviewing some young Toronto writers -- all of 'em 30 and younger. They went on at length about the insider-ish aspects of Canadian lit, how even if you're young you're old, and about how un-modern Canadian writing is.

One of the guys pointed out how he was dressed, how his fellow authors dress and look. The glasses, the shaved heads, yadda yadda. He actually said something like "you meet a writer in Brooklyn today, this is what he looks like." He meant that there was a hip-ness to them, and an out-of-it-ness to "the rest of us".

For some reason, the whole thing made me think of Adam Ant. Remember back in '81 or so and Rolling Stone named Adam and the Ants the next big force in rock 'n roll? Bigger and more important than The Clash? That we'd all be wearing the eye make-up and the puffy shirts? How accurate did that turn out to be?

The lesson? For want of experience and perspective, oftentimes youth can be so misguided about what's got legs for surviving beyond the moment. The energy and fresh insight is a necessary ingredient for vital art and living with art, but it's only one side of a many-sided coin. The crafty old codgers usually know a thing or two...

Question authority? Damn straight. Do it. Always. But don't be an ideologue: keep your mind open. Open to the possibility that authority might be right.
 
#37
Yeah, in arts and crafts, esp., if you don't have any grounding in how things were done, or you're not willing to learn how things were done or designed, you're lost.You can't go forward. Leanard Coen says as much. When he's writing his stuff, he's following rythms and systems that go back to the ancient Greeks. Never had an original idea in his life, he says. Piccaso's early paintings were fully grounded in classical methods. And with out that period, he would have never invented his own. As with Van Gogh, there are tons of examps.

It's unfortunate that now a days we kinda took an everything goes attitude, every ones an artist, creativity usurps ability, etc. Authority keeps you down, man. Load of poo

Just look at guitar design, as an examp. Slow down hill spiral. Curves don't relate to other curves, designs don't relate to it's function. Hey any thing goes, right! If it's new and different, then it must be cool and good! Just paint it up! It'll look good! Ugh.

Can you imagine if the art of bow making followed this trend, with out any grounding in the craft.Just a bunch of sanded down sticks, with tassels glued on the end. Painted blue and green in a body shop. Very cool. No?

Geniuses of any feild don't just appear out of no-where. They start with the basics, and absorb it completely, and then they shoot forward. No exceptions. Think Bob dylan.

My two cents, with tax.
 
#39
Only on your christmas packages! No, I'm just kidding. Whatever, blue, green, no one is going to care if it draws a beautiful sound and plays whatever you "tell it to". I haven't re-read the whole thread but another thing comes to mind. Do you play arco bass? I don't think it's essential but it certainly would be high on my list if I wanted to make bows. What makes a good bow to you Jimmy? What makes an excellent frog? What drives you to make bows? Let's start there.
 
#40
yes, quite frequently I play arco, an excellent bow in my opinion is evenly weighted but with a little weight towards the tip, a frog must fit comfortably into your hand and not feel like its a struggle to play, there are lots of great bass makers but few great bowmakers, its much more specialized, plus I can keep all of my work in my house(its hard to keep all the uprights you ever make) and repair of bows and such is quite easy to get buisness(you can just mail bows) plus I think it could be fun
 

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