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Bow for cigar box fiddle

Hi everyone. Help please.

Mostly I make diddley bows but recently I acquired a box that lends itself to a fiddle so I built a one-string cigar box fiddle. So far so good. However, I want to make a small bow to play the instrument (I would prefer not to use a store-bought bow if at all possible). Does anyone have experience of doing this or suggestions for what I can do? I think i can manage the wooden part but what can I use as an alternative to horsehair? Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks

Phil

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Order99 on May 23, 2017 at 2:43am

Well, I used the old Medieval woodcuts for inspiration and designed a bow like that once...it was just a strong and springy limb bent and notched, with a large diameter piece of nylon Trimmer cord tied end to end. I have no idea if it would work for your project because my one-string Vaudeville fiddle used a flat-wound guitar string rather than a violin string-also, I had to use sandpaper on the nylon so that it would hold the rosin for more than a few minutes. Worth a try I suppose...

Now if you have access to power tools you could always cut and layer a laminated handmade bow and fit a standard horsehair insert into it-if you don't want to get fancy a broken hacksaw would likely yield up a good tensioner for one of those...

Permalink Reply by Phil Thomas on May 23, 2017 at 2:50am