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Double Bass Damaged bow

djc03006

djc03006

Apr 4, 2011
278
129
#1
Hi,

I bought a French bow a few years back and am getting back into playing, but the bow appears to be damaged (see pic). A lot of the hairs are loose. I'm wondering whether I can just replace the hairs, but from searching online I couldn't find anything. If I unscrew the bottom of the bow, it appears to allow the piece attached to the hair to come off the bow, so it made me think it's able to be replaced. It's a Glasser bow (says Glasser NY), can't remember which model or where I bought it.

Thanks in advance.
 

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#5
KUNGfuSHERIFF said:
If you’re careful you may be better off buying a cheap Brazilwood, snakewood or carbon fiber bow than repairing a Fiberglas bow if you’re anything near serious about playing with the stick.
Click to expand...
Agreed. If it’s fiberglass, it’s likely not worth repairing locally, but Glasser has an reasonably priced Invalid Link Removed. If it’s one of the better Glasser bows, then you should consider having it rehaired. What did you pay for it?
 
#7
Hi,

It's hard to tell from your pic for sure because of blurring and the distraction of the keyboard it's sitting on, but looks like the spreader wedge popped out.

It's function is, as the name implies, to spread the hair into a flat ribbon. The job of actually securing the hair in place is usually done with a pair of specially shaped wood plugs in the head and inside the frog. With the cheaper Glasser fiberglass bows, the plug in the head is plastic and held with a screw, and in the frog there is no plug, the hair bundle straddles another screw which is tightened to hold it in place. The spreader wedges are plastic.

They're meant to be quick and easy to rehair but actually can be a pain if the original plug in the head is lost because the mortise (squarish hole) isn't shaped to lock in a wooden plug. Most rehair folks will have some Glasser plugs in their stash or just resort to a LOT of glue.

The piece in the frog you're worried about replacing is actually a non-issue. That's the one part of the bow that is normal. It's just a matter of minutes to carve and fit a wood spreader. It's even tempting to just toss the plastic one because it's much easier to adjust the wood spreader size to fit the hair than to regulate the number hairs to fill the gap left by the plastic spreader.

But after all the verbosity...you need a rehair!

It'll cost you about the same as the bow...anywhere from $40 to $70.
 
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#8
You can get a fairly decent CF bass bow from sleazebay for around $50 (or as high as you'd like to spend - but it's not clear that price indicates quality there.)

Compared with $70 for a re-hair, it's a step up from fiberglass, and in my case means that I then have a bow I don't fear screwing up as I learn to rehair it for the price of the hair alone going forward. My particular $53 sleazebay bow seems to have a good stick and not the greatest hair job or mortise, but as a wood-dorker I took my chisels to the (plastic) tip to reshape the mortise properly. Further commentary on that was posted in the "Mirecort style" rehairing thread, which (along with the linked videos) I found useful.

Sending the Glasser for reconditioning at the factory (assuming it's fiberglass - they do make CF bows now, and way back when made wood bows) is probably the only way rehairing that makes any fiscal sense, other than DIY.

Also - read up on "bow bugs" and consider vacuuming and treating the area where you are storing your bow.
 
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