Jeff Krieger

I probably should have stopped at saying I am still looking for a very dark finish.

I have tried just UV and it does darken the wood making it look more antique. I have also tried ammonia (not lab grade) and nitric acid. I am still looking for a very dark finish. I am told that potential bow clients almost always pick up the bows from a pile that are dark first to audition.

Hi, I didn't use lab grade ammonia so this is very helpful to me. Was the ammonia enough to darken the pernambuco?

I am looking to finish a cello bow made of pernambuco wood and would like to know about successful, alternative ways of getting a dark finish. I have used ammonia and nitric acid. Are there other methods to get a very dark, even finish? Thanks, Jeff

Sorry, I stand corrected.

It took under an hour. I am still looking for 2 mm carbon fiber rods. Everyone seems to be sold out.

Great sketch! Thanks so much! I need to work on this and will report the results.

Somehow I need to securely mount such a clamp off the edge of the table.

I am still in the set up/experimentation stage of this repair. If I go in the direction of a spline, I will still need a suitable clamp to work with a Taig mini lathe pictured in an earlier post. Any more ideas on this would be much appreciated. This weekend I did a ebony dowel repair on a cheap broken cello bow as an experiment. I made the hole and dowel 2.5 mm just because that is the drill bit I happened to have. This was an experiment. I first glued the 2 pieces together with G2, rather than just super glue. I tried to pull apart the repair but it is strong. I believe it really comes down to the glue. I have repaired broken sticks with G2, one in 2 places, and it has held for several years now. However, I think a carbon fiber rod is a great idea and I plan to try this as well.

Another repair person gave me a violin bow that had a spline repair but it came apart. It had a metal spline. It was such a mess I couldn't use it even for practice.

Hi Edi I am going to try this. I have a couple of cheap broken bows to practice with. I am planning to go with a pernambuco rod since my experience with thin pieces of ebony is that it shatters. I tried to locate carbon fiber rods but could not track any down. Any thoughts on where to find this would be greatly appreciated. I assume for a violin or cello bow only one rod is necessary? Thanks for the push in this direction! Jeff

I am having difficulties finding a mountable clamp for the Taig mini lathe. There isn't a lot of clearance as you can see. I attach a photo.

Is it possible to make the saw cut by just holding the bow?

Awesome response! Thank you so much!

I need to make a saw cut down the center of a tip of a violin bow to insert a spline. I will be using a mini lathe with a circular saw. Can anyone advise me on what kind of clamp to hold the bow in place?