Cord32 Violin and Bow Repair

08/02/2025

My sweet and beautiful wife! And some handsome guy!

07/19/2025

Mount Etna in Taormina Sicily

07/19/2025

Sandy eating her bucket of mussels in Toulon. And dinner on the ship last night

09/22/2024

SPECIAL OFFER FOR STRING PLAYERS.

I have a bundle of hair that needs to be used. To do that I am offering a bow rehair special.
As long as this bundle lasts, I am offering bow rehair for $20 per violin\viola bow! Cello and bass bows, $25 each. This is for bow rehair only. Incidental repairs would be done at the normal price.

First come first serve! If you are interested, contact me through Facebook messenger.

12/06/2019

Not much has happened at Cord32 lately, but 20/20 means perfect vision, does it not? We are looking forward to a much less stressful year beginning in January. Thanks to all who have visited this page.

04/27/2018

Well, that certainly looks better. New whale bone, new leather, and fresh hair. What more could a cellist want in a bow.

04/24/2018

10/31/2017

These books are my references. Some are general texts about woodworking and tools, particularly the Tige Frid book, which is one of my favorites. Others are reprints from 19th century texts. I use them much less often, although I have found that their ideas are still quite valid. Most importantly are my notebooks from my classes at UNH. I am a terrible note taker, and most of my notes are barely legible even to me. But I wrote things that I have to look at whenever I do certain jobs, just to make sure that I remember correctly. You can also see a tiny seed/egg case that I found next to my pond some time ago. I'm not sure how that made it into the photo.

10/17/2017

New wire and leather grip, fresh hair, Finished!

10/17/2017

New wire grip on a bow. It is ready for the leather.

09/27/2017

A note for all my friends who play stringed instruments. Those white (or black, if you prefer that color for your bass bows) filaments on your bow really are horse hair. That hair is a natural substance, and vulnerable to all the elements of nature. The humidity in the air, along with other phenomena, will make the hair stretch. They don't stretch one at a time unfortunately. They all stretch together. Quite a lot in fact. This is a natural and expected condition to occur.
The hair is much like the gasoline in your vehicle. It has a certain life expectancy, depending on how much and how hard you use your bow, and it eventually becomes exhausted. So just as you have to replace the gas in your car, you have to replace the hair on your bow. Notice, you replace the hair. You DO NOT alter the bow in any fashion in order to "fix" the stretched out hair. The hair is ON the bow, not part of it. Just as gas is in your car, and not part of it.
I have seen people invent some pretty drastic solutions that ruined the bow, or very nearly ruined it. If you have tightened the hair as far as the button will turn, and the hair is still loose, then stop trying to tighten any further, because you can break the bottom end of the bow, which I have seen, or damage to eyelet under the frog, also seen. There are two solutions. First, if the hair is new, the hank can be shortened. Second, we can put a fresh hank of hair on the bow.
Please don't take a pocket knife to your bow. Replacing the hair is relatively simple, albeit tedious. Repairs to your bow are complicated, expensive, and rarely bring the bow back to its original condition.