Bow Rehair

It's that time of the year again - bow rehairs.

As you know, after normal usage of the bow the hairs break and the hairs start thinning out. For me, this usually happens every 2-4 months, depending on what my repertoire is and how much I practice.

Bow rehairs usually cost me $50-$70 and unfortunately the best bow hair job I've ever gotten done was from a violin maker in Philadelphia (which is two hours from my place in Central Jersey). To be honest I've never seen rehairs like his - the hairs lasted me almost 5 months up once and I was practicing regularly (about 4-6 hours a day, in addition to rehearsals in chamber groups and orchestra). So it might be worth the two hour drive after all, but what made his jobs special were not only the thick(er) hairs he used but also the way it went all the way around the ferrule. It was stunning and I wish I took pictures of the bows but alas I took it for granted.

I'm still trying to figure out what kind of hairs he uses for the job, but I do know that the ones on my current bow are Mongolian horse hairs which, don't get me wrong, get the job done but they are so thin and if the batch is bad they start snapping and breaking immediately. And I mean immediately...I lost 5-10 hairs already within the first week.

So how do you know when to get a bow rehaired?
Well, for starters, when the bow starts looking like this:

I marked out the areas where the bow hair is supposed to be

Now before I go on I have to say that this is an INSANE amount of hair loss for a bow, and by all means get it done immediately. For some people, they never break any bow hairs, so when should they get the hair changed abd how do they know? Well, if the bow skids around on the strings then that's a sure sign. Also they would feel slightly brittle over the strings.

I looked on some forums and people said that they only rehaired every 4 years. FOUR YEARS? that's crazy! That is the craziest talk I've ever heard. People graduate high school in the span of four years! Or college. Or do something amazing in that time period.

No, I think it's important to get your bow hair changed every 2-4 months. Six months is the most. A year would be stretching it.

So there you have it. Hope this was some good information.

Above: Newly rehaired Brazilian Chagas bow (Mongolian horse hair)
Below: A neglected carbon fiber Encore Student bow