Question to luthiers, is Brazilian rose wood a viable option for bows?

[Concertmaster1]

Knowing that in the guitar world, the best "Cadillac" of woods is the Brazilian rose wood due to it's tonal qualities, has anyone tried or seen or know why ( apart form recent export bans ) Brazilian rosewood isn't used for violin bows instead of pernambuco ?   

[Brad Dorsey]

I don’t know if Brazilian rosewood would be suitable for bows.

Centuries ago, large quantities of pernambuco logs were shipped from Brazil to Europe, because a red dye extracted from the wood was found to be useful for dying cloth.  The availability of pernambuco in Europe led early bow makers to try making bows with it, and they found that it worked well.  Perhaps Brazilian rosewood would have worked just as well, or even better, for bows, but it wasn’t available for bow makers to try because it wasn’t imported as dye wood.

[jacobsaunders]

Rosewood is, I believe also subject to CITES restrictions, so that it would as a replacement wood for pernambuco be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire

[Renegade Violin]

12 hours ago, Concertmaster1 said:

Knowing that in the guitar world, the best "Cadillac" of woods is the Brazilian rose wood due to it's tonal qualities, has anyone tried or seen or know why ( apart form recent export bans ) Brazilian rosewood isn't used for violin bows instead of pernambuco ?   

And what element of the guitar are you talking about, and where did this information come from?

[Renegade Violin]

39 minutes ago, jacobsaunders said:

Rosewood is, I believe also subject to CITES restrictions, so that it would as a replacement wood for pernambuco be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire

Exactly.

[Don Noon]

12 hours ago, Concertmaster1 said:

Knowing that in the guitar world, the best "Cadillac" of woods is the Brazilian rose wood due to it's tonal qualities...

I have one guitar with Brazillian rosewood, and one with non-Brazilian rosewood, and wouldn't attribute any tonal differences to the back/side variety of rosewood.  I kinda thought it was mostly for the appearance.  And maybe the snob effect because it's so rare and expensive (if you can get it at all).

Even if there WAS a real tonal difference, I don't see how you could extrapolate good gutar tone of the back and sides of a guitar to good violin tone used in a bow.

[Blank face]

From my experience, rosewood splits too easily along the grain as that it could work well for bows. Beside that it appears to be very probable that it was tried like other sorts of more rare tropical woods, without successful outcome.

[Renegade Violin]

I recently read a statement by an American (probably) bow specialist.
He has been testing different species for many years, and he said that there is a pernambuko variety that is perfectly suitable and is not restricted ... (starting with the letter 'I' or 'S' - it's a tree - I don't remember)

[David Burgess]

11 minutes ago, Spongebob said:

I recently read a statement by an American (probably) bow specialist.
He has been testing different species for many years, and he said that there is a pernambuko variety that is perfectly suitable and is not restricted ... (starting with the letter 'I' or 'S' - it's a tree - I don't remember)

Probably Ipe, but athough it grows in Brazil, I don't think it's a variety of pernambuco.

[Renegade Violin]

35 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Probably Ipe, but athough it grows in Brazil, I don't think it's a variety of pernambuco.

Yes... Ipe

https://stringsmagazine.com/state-of-the-heartwood-with-pernambuco-conservation-efforts-underway-makers-search-for-other-bow-wood-options/

 

[martin swan]

3 hours ago, Spongebob said:

I recently read a statement by an American (probably) bow specialist.
He has been testing different species for many years, and he said that there is a pernambuko variety that is perfectly suitable and is not restricted ... (starting with the letter 'I' or 'S' - it's a tree - I don't remember)

Ipé has just been listed on Appendix II of CITES.

It's under tremendous and sustained pressure because it's used in construction. The only people who use pau-brasil are bowmakers ...

[joerobson]

Just an aside and a question.

The "discovery" of Brazil and later Brazilwood was important in the dye trade as red sandalwood (teracarpus santalinus) was difficult to obtain. Red sandalwood is traditional for the erhu. Has anyone tried it for bows?

on we go

Joe

 

[Jacobus Drainer]

^Sandalwood bows are available for not a lot of ...scratch.

 

[joerobson]

13 minutes ago, Bill Merkel said:

^Sandalwood bows are available for not a lot of ...scratch.

 

Interesting...thanks

[The Violin Beautiful]

On 4/5/2023 at 8:44 PM, Concertmaster1 said:

Knowing that in the guitar world, the best "Cadillac" of woods is the Brazilian rose wood due to it's tonal qualities, has anyone tried or seen or know why ( apart form recent export bans ) Brazilian rosewood isn't used for violin bows instead of pernambuco ?   

Brazilian rosewood is heavily restricted by CITES, as others have pointed out. There was a dramatic and heavily publicized raid on the Gibson factory a while back because of their large collection of the wood. After that  the larger companies became very nervous about using it for fear of a similar seizure. Nowadays, the selection is quite limited, so makers have to pay a hefty price just for wood that no one would have wanted before CITES. I was talking with some guitar makers at a folk festival last year and they talked about how difficult it was to get Brazilian rosewood. They told me that most of what’s available is just the dregs, often very thin cuts from stumps.

A friend had the idea to try making a violin neck, ribs, and back out of it as an experiment. He carved the scroll and then decided it was just too much of a hassle to work the wood and gave up the experiment. The scroll became a decoration.

It might be interesting to see how it worked in a bow, but the difficulty in sourcing the wood and the cost for a board would prevent it from becoming a replacement for pernambuco. 

[Strad O Various Jr.]

You could try Cocobolo, which is readily available and is a Central American species of Rosewood, however it has large pores which would make it troublesome for bow wood

[Wood Butcher]

Isn't Cocobolo also under CITES restrictions?

[martin swan]

1 hour ago, Wood Butcher said:

Isn't Cocobolo also under CITES restrictions?

Yes it's on Appendix II along with all Dalbergia (rosewood) species.

It's also very nasty to work with, the dust is pretty toxic, and some people are allergic to it!

There is really no need to find a substitute for pernambuco - worldwide usage from bowmaking is close to zero, and this demand can easily be met by a traceable plantation supply. Lots of people are working to make this happen and to ensure future managed sources ...

[Concertmaster1]

On 4/6/2023 at 6:03 AM, Don Noon said:

I have one guitar with Brazillian rosewood, and one with non-Brazilian rosewood, and wouldn't attribute any tonal differences to the back/side variety of rosewood.  I kinda thought it was mostly for the appearance.  And maybe the snob effect because it's so rare and expensive (if you can get it at all).

Even if there WAS a real tonal difference, I don't see how you could extrapolate good gutar tone of the back and sides of a guitar to good violin tone used in a bow.

Maybe it varies, but for classical guitar there is a huge tonal difference. Mine is made in Brazil, the varnish was cracked so had to refinish it, ( before then there was certainly a noticeable difference albeit debatable between indian rosewood ) however a luthier friend mentioned not applying an acrylic coat and just leaving it bare with only a bit of wax and oil rubbed in to saturate the dry wood. That is how the famed Spanish luthiers created their iconic classical guitars in the 19th century, so I followed the procedure and sure enough an incredible difference and quite the characteristic of its own. A more mellow and natural sound, definitely something that once heard hard to go back to a different wood back and side guitar . 

[Concertmaster1]

On 4/6/2023 at 5:57 AM, Spongebob said:

And what element of the guitar are you talking about, and where did this information come from?

As Don stated, back, sides and fretboard . 

[The Violin Beautiful]

5 hours ago, Concertmaster1 said:

Maybe it varies, but for classical guitar there is a huge tonal difference. Mine is made in Brazil, the varnish was cracked so had to refinish it, ( before then there was certainly a noticeable difference albeit debatable between indian rosewood ) however a luthier friend mentioned not applying an acrylic coat and just leaving it bare with only a bit of wax and oil rubbed in to saturate the dry wood. That is how the famed Spanish luthiers created their iconic classical guitars in the 19th century, so I followed the procedure and sure enough an incredible difference and quite the characteristic of its own. A more mellow and natural sound, definitely something that once heard hard to go back to a different wood back and side guitar . 

It isn’t just the classical guitars. Many makers are just as reverential about Brazilian rosewood as violin makers are about the wood the great Cremonese makers used.

A world-renowned guitar maker I’m familiar with is equally admired for his instruments and his wood collection over which every fellow guitar maker drools during each visit to his workshop. 
 

Although I’m not a guitar person myself, I’ve heard many makers and players alike say that Martin guitars were at their best before they switched to Indian rosewood at the end of the 1960s. Willie Nelson’s “Trigger” (although that one IS a classical guitar model) has Brazilian rosewood in it, and many consider it the perfect guitar. 

[Don Noon]

36 minutes ago, The Violin Beautiful said:

Willie Nelson’s “Trigger” (although that one IS a classical guitar model) has Brazilian rosewood in it, and many consider it the perfect guitar. 

I think it has to do with the extra soundhole 

[Don Noon]

While we're at it...

The best sounding violins have maple backs, so why not make bows out of maple?

The best sounding instruments of almost any type have spruce soundboards, so why not make bows out of spruce?

The best sounding bows are made of pernambuco, so why not make violin backs (or tops) out of pernambuco?

Some things don't transfer to other applications.

[Michael Darnton]

Brazillian RW is also appreciated for boards and bridges. There seems to be an obvious difference. You can make a marimba from Brazillian RW but not Indian. Brazillian rings brightly, Indian goes "thud", relatively.

[The Violin Beautiful]

3 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I think it has to do with the extra soundhole 

It would be very easy to just write it off by saying the extra hole in the top is the explanation and that the answer to how to reproduce the perfect guitar is to do the same thing to the top of every guitar.

I think history and a lot of experimentation has shown that we can’t clone a great instrument just by copying one eccentricity, and a part of  what establishes great instruments as such is the care that’s taken to make sure they’re great. A considerable fortune has been spent to keep Trigger sounding the way it does, involving all kinds of creative approaches to shore up the damage from the inside. That’s not really any different from the violin world.

I don’t have any idea whether Brazilian rosewood would work well for a bow or not, but I’d be curious to see what it would turn out like if someone made one and handed it to me to try just for fun. Bow makers are already trying out all kinds of alternatives.