Books › Violin making and repairing, 1927 › scan 150
Scan 150
Violin making and repairing, 1927
6 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER XII
3Making a Violin Bow
5Woods Used. — Violin bows are made from Brazil wood, Pernambuco wood, snakewood, ironwood and lancewood. Greenheart is occasionally used, but the best sticks are undoubtedly constructed from carefully chosen sticks of Pernambuco wood, which is imported into the country for the purpose of extracting purple dyeing matter from it. The billets are carefully sorted out by experts, who pick out the straightest grained logs and retail them to the bow-makers. Pernambuco wood is extremely hard, cross-grained, and liable to be useless in many cases for the purpose of the bow-maker owing to this liability to cracks, shakes and knots. For this reason it is better to buy the sticks ready prepared (roughed out) than to buy the logs from a distance, as it is almost certain in the latter case that the majority of the consignment would be found useless on arrival. It is possible and, indeed, preferable to practice with cheap wood first of all, until a certain measure of dexterity is gained, when the Pernambuco sticks might be taken in hand. For the purpose of practice, lancewood, greenheart, or even good hard-grown straight-grained ash might be used. Snakewood is too stiff and unyielding to make good bows, and the same may be said of ironwood; but one occasionally comes across fine lancewood bows.
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