Jeff White Posted July 14, 2020 Report Posted July 14, 2020 I (begrugingly) told a good customer I would rehair his bow with that newer synthetic hair from Connolly under the "Coruss" name. Now I'm nervous. From a rehairer standpoint, does it react like horsehair? What should I be cautious about?(other than not doing this again.....)Help Jerry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PASEWICZ Posted July 15, 2020 Report Posted July 15, 2020 5 hours ago, Jeff White said: I (begrugingly) told a good customer I would rehair his bow with that newer synthetic hair from Connolly under the "Coruss" name. Now I'm nervous. From a rehairer standpoint, does it react like horsehair? What should I be cautious about?(other than not doing this again.....)Help Jerry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry Jeff. I was asked to review this hair maybe a decade ago by the company that imports it for distribution in this country. As I told them at the time, it is truly horrible stuff. It has an uncanny ability to make every string on every instrument sound false. The other big issue for me was at the time the hair was promoted as lasting far longer than real hair, it did not stretch, and was not susceptible to humidity changes. This was problematic as of course it does stretch and therefore stretches unevenly so the supposed benefit of lasting longer was a danger to the bows themselves. At the time, it was also more expensive than real hair so my advice to the distributor was to pass on the product. I also left them with the realization that they are solving a problem that doesn’t exist.....we are not running out of horsehair and horses are not killed to supply bow hair. As far as how the stuff works for rehairing, it is like hairing a bow with fishing line...because it is rehairing a bow with fishing line....except they treat the hair with something that raises the PH. They are probably doing this to hold the rosin better, but it dramatically reduces the time you have to tie a CA knot.....and yes I have have rehaired bows with fishing line. So to bottom line this stuff, it does not rehair like horsehair, it does not sound as good as horse hair, it is more expensive than horsehair, and it puts the bows at more risk than horsehair.....we can address the whole idea behind having a cool way to ignore relative humidity at some other time. I do wish you luck, once again, sorry.
Jeff White Posted July 15, 2020 Author Report Posted July 15, 2020 I had to get it done, so I dove in yesterday afternoon. As described, it was like monofiliment line. Hard to tie off as it was sooooo slippery. My outside edges are a little long(loose) and I'm guessing I won't be able to shrink them any with heat. I've run into this on my regular rehairs too, I use a turning stick (frog-head), but sometimes I end up with the outside edges a little loose.
Jeff White Posted July 15, 2020 Author Report Posted July 15, 2020 FWIW, I found that heat will shrink any loose hairs. You just need to heat it more than natural hair, and not so much as to melt it (lost one). Phew! Jerry, I hear your critique (this customer likes it on his cello bow, vegan?). Still, all in all, a bit of a PITA to rehair with this stuff, so slippery.
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