French bow - strange head mortice (?!)

[Guido]

Not seen one of these before.

The font of the mortice seems to have a plastic liner/ insert that may be part of the face plate.

The back of the mortice is round but doesn't seem drilled (the diameter of the drill would be wider than the head). Looks like it was cut with a gauge instead of a chisel.

Anyone seen something like this before (on a French bow)? If so, where?

[Brad Dorsey]

I don’t recall seeing an insert like that.  It has to be a separate piece — not part of the face plate.  

The mortise couldn’t have been drilled with a drill wider than the head, because if it had been the mortise would break through somewhere.

In general, the head plate looks like an inept replacement.

[Blank face]

Agree that it all looks like a sort of odd repair or alteration of both headplate and mortise shape.

[The Violin Beautiful]

My guess is that the insert is an attempt to make up for a mistake when replacing the tip. Perhaps the drill wandered off center and cut wood out of the top of the mortise, or perhaps the bit was never properly placed. The rounded corners at the bottom might be an attempt to leave room for a pick for removal or they might simply be the result of very poor workmanship in opening the mortise. It could be that a mouse tail file was used in the corners in an attempt to shape them.

[Blank face]

Never drill out a mortise wedge 

[Conor Russell]

Not sure that the bows were French, but I've seen this on student bows.

If it's the same,  the tips are plastic, moulded into the head. I think the mortice was started with an endmill.

You'll know if you trim a bit off with a chisel.

[Guido]

I was expecting replies along the lines of all of the above...

But was also hoping for the off-chance it might be original to this bow form the plastic-is-fantastic time. It also sports the shrinking plastic pearl slide in the frog. I know we have a different perspective on this stuff today and rationalise accordingly, but this is a silver mounted bow .

[lvlagneto]

15 hours ago, Blank face said:

Never drill out a mortise wedge 

The tip is also gone so... maybe don't use a farrier rasp technique.  

[GeorgeH]

7 hours ago, lvlagneto said:

The tip is also gone so... maybe don't use a farrier rasp technique

I wonder if somebody took a plate from another bow and glued it on this one.

[Blank face]

8 hours ago, Guido said:

I was expecting replies along the lines of all of the above...

But was also hoping for the off-chance it might be original to this bow form the plastic-is-fantastic time. It also sports the shrinking plastic pearl slide in the frog. I know we have a different perspective on this stuff today and rationalise accordingly, but this is a silver mounted bow .

The little pores make the plate look more like bone to me, likewise the way it splits at the edge, maybe the insert of a different stuff. A celluloid slide is very typical for a mostly Laberte made bow from the early 20th.

[Blank face]

I don’t think it looked like now from the start. The corners of the mortise seem to be filled with something (not really clear at the photos), formerly it was like that:

[lvlagneto]

3 hours ago, GeorgeH said:

I wonder if somebody took a plate from another bow and glued it on this one.

I was wondering if maybe the entire thing is an attempt to salvage a larger broken bow?

[Guido]

More plastic inserts in the frog.

At least it seems to all belong together and be original.

But given this is a silver mounted French bow, I'd assume it is from a time when plastic was new and someone thought it was the bee's knees.

As mentioned before, the frog also has the perloid slide.

It does look sufficiently unique that if someone has seen it before... they could let me know.

[Guido]

On 9/6/2025 at 12:59 AM, Conor Russell said:

Not sure that the bows were French, but I've seen this on student bows.

If it's the same,  the tips are plastic, moulded into the head. I think the mortice was started with an endmill.

You'll know if you trim a bit off with a chisel.

I feel like this is the best answer regarding what is going on at the head.

As the face is quite worn and the tip broken off I will soon take a chisel to it.

Just wanted to learn a little more before digging in (and probably make some pernambuco inserts to have a ‘normal’ mortise.

[Guido]

And after removing it I can confirm the face plate and the mortice insert were out of one piece of plastic!

[Blank face]

1 hour ago, Guido said:

And after removing it I can confirm the face plate and the mortice insert were out of one piece of plastic!

That looks very odd, like a method of mass-producing. The heel plate looks like silver on first sight, but more thick than I’m used to see them - maybe it’s an imitation, too? Connor seems to be the only one who has seen stuff like that before.

At this point I’m curious to see complete views of head and frog to get an idea where it might originate from. Plastic and perloid weren’t used exclusively in Mirecourt, so this bows might have been produced elsewhere.

 

[Brad Dorsey]

7 hours ago, Blank face said:

…a method of mass-producing…

Yes.  The frog and head mortises were cut by a router, which was very fast but it made them the wrong shape.  Then, plastic inserts were installed to give them the right shape.  I’ve never seen a bow with mortise inserts like that those.

I do see a lot of modern Chinese bows with frog mortises cut with a router like that and left round on the ends.  For example:

 

[fiddlecollector]

Looks like the parts have been fitted later , the lack of oxidation of the pernambuco in the mortice  and the way the bottom is cut looks later but without seeing the rest of the bow the stick and frog etc.. could be anything from the photos. If it was cut later the head mortice looks rather shallow.

[Blank face]

3 hours ago, fiddlecollector said:

the lack of oxidation of the pernambuco in the mortice  and the way the bottom is cut looks later

Or the bow is simply not that old as we thought. I'm a bit perplexed that the plate at the first set of photos looked as being of two parts (the plate with a rounded insert at the front mortice), but at the newer as made of one piece, the sort of rounded line disppeared. Just a trick of the photo?

[Rothwein]

I'm not sure either. new, old, good...

[Guido]

Not cutting new mortices every day. Will probably want to enlarge it a little more.

[Guido]

1 hour ago, Rothwein said:

I'm not sure either. new, old, good...

When all else fails, date by perloid slide shrink rate...

This one is rattling lose but not yet ready to fall out.

[Guido]

12 hours ago, Blank face said:

Or the bow is simply not that old as we thought. I'm a bit perplexed that the plate at the first set of photos looked as being of two parts (the plate with a rounded insert at the front mortice), but at the newer as made of one piece, the sort of rounded line disppeared. Just a trick of the photo?

As it was made of plastic I didn't break the glue bond with heat but rather filed the face off.

The newer photo is half way through to show/ illustrate that the plate and insert were indeed one piece.

Not sure why/ how there was a line in the original photos that looked like there was an insert separate from the face plate. Maybe it was to indicate the size of the plastic at the front of the mortise.

[Blank face]

4 hours ago, Guido said:

When all else fails, date by perloid slide shrink rate...

This one is rattling lose but not yet ready to fall out.

Thanks! The perloid doesn’t look exactly like those I use to see at Labertes and like, which are usually thinner, more yellowish and heavy tapered. Maybe the bow is more from the 1970s/80s or even later?

[Conor Russell]

I'm not quite sure, but I think Finkel may have had a molded plastic face in his most basic (Lefin) bows, in the nineties.  The backs of the heads were round, with no chambers, a feature we chose to alter, with a knife! I never took a face off, but they might well have been milled out too. The frogs were normal, I think by Paulus.