Books › An encyclopedia of the violin, 1925 › scan 148
Scan 148
An encyclopedia of the violin, 1925
26 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 124. See the scan on archive.org.
1Bows that are at all expensive are made of the wood used in cabinet work, such as campeachy wood, iron wood, Brazil wood, Pernambuco wood and others. The nut is made of ebony and, sometimes, ivory.
3The best among the woods just mentioned is Pernambuco wood. Hence any really fine violin bow seen these days is made of this wood, the hardness and flexibility of which cause it to be preferred to all other woods in the manufacture of bow sticks.
5Iron wood, too, is not without its good qualities, and is especially well adapted for the making of violoncello bows. Aside from the fact that it is somewhat heavy, however, it also has a great tendency to warp, and the bows made of it are rarely altogether straight.
7Bows are also made of local woods of various kinds, but the best of them are not worth much.
9TOOLS USED IN BOW MAKING
11The bow maker does not need nearly as many tools as does the violin maker. The tools he uses are the following:
13A work bench similar to that employed by the violin maker, clamps, two steel planes, drills, chisels, knives, saws, files, a bench vise, and a hand vise.
15The Steel Planes.—The first of these steel planes resemble an ordinary plane (Fig. 1). The only difference is one of dimension, the bow maker's plane being smaller. This plane is 14 centimeters long by 3 centimeters broad (5 1/2" by 1 1/5") at its base.
17Figure 1, Plate 38, represents the small steel plane: A, the plane ready mounted; B, the base. It is made like the steel planes used by the violin makers.
19The Drill.—Figure 2, Plate 38, represents this tool, which is familiar, since there is not a locksmith who does not possess one, although it has probably been replaced in modern bow-making shops by a more modern type.
21In order to set this in movement a so-called bow drill is required. This bow drill is a dagger or sword blade recurved at its point so as to form a hook to which a strip of leather or a violoncello D string is fixed. Two or three turns are given the drill, and the strip or string is then fixed to the handle of the bow drill, while by alternate pushing and pulling back a rotary movement is communicated to the drill.
23The vise B serves to hold down the platform of the drill, and prevents it from jumping while it turns. In the inner part of the end C, a square has been made into which the end of the drill fits. This square is about 2 centimeters (about 4/5 of an inch) deep, and the drill is fixed in this square by means of the small vise, D.
25The bow maker should be provided with drills of various dimensions, and all these drills should, naturally, be made so that they are in proportion to the respective holes they are intended to bore. Thus, two are needed for the violin bow.
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