When Is It Time To Rehair Your Bow?

So one of the most common questions we get in the shower repair shop is: how do I know when it's time for me to get my bowl rehear? The most general advice we can give is that we typically advise people to have your bow rehired every 6 to 12 months, depending on how often in how aggressively the player is using the bow. However, today I want to go over a few other obvious signs. That'S time to have your bow reared, so probably the most common sign, that's time to have your bow reared is that the hair have stretched to the past the point of any kind of comfortable playing tension all right. So this is a freshly rehired new bow, and you can see in this bow in the loosest position that the hair is kind of gently resting on the side of the bow there. This bow is one where the hair has stretched well beyond, where it should be and see that the hair in this case is hanging far below the stick and one of the problems that can arise other than you know, playability having that boast, the hair stretched out That far can actually also cause additional problems for the bow, as you can see, that bow the Frog of the bow, the black part here, as you tighten the screw, it's moving backwards in this channel, which we call the the mortise. However, it eventually once the hair tightens stretches to a certain point that eyelet reaches the back of the mortise and there's no place left for the bow to be tightened. And what happens is that if you continue to tighten and tighten and tighten either, you will strip out the threads on the screw or on the eyelet or even in worse case scenario, crack the Frog or crack the mortise? So, that's probably the most important sign you want to keep in mind when considering whether or not it's time to have the bow rehear at any time. That hair starts to stretch beyond the the side of the bow there time to get about rehear. So a second sign, then then, it's time to have the bow rehired is that you're just simply missing too much of the hair over time, and particularly if a player is playing really aggressively or playing, you know aggressive pieces. What happens is some of the hair typically on the sides begins to break off and you get some of these straggling hairs. You know both at the bottom here at the Frog and at the tip and you'll notice, in comparison to a nouveau or in fresh leery hair bow. You can see that in this case the hair just isn't extending from one side of the ferrule on the Frog to the other you're losing hair and with that you're losing contact on the strings and again time to have the bow rehear. Then the last sign that I want to talk about today. That indicates it's time to have the bow. Rehired is simply the buildup of dirt grime oil and sweat on the hair of the bow. Typically, that's most commonly indicated down here in the thumb section where the thumb is resting on the strings. You know usually there's a band of kind of dark, grimy material. Here you know to a certain extent, you can mitigate this by wiping down the bow after after playing, but if this continues ultimately that oil that's building up on the strings, is going to keep the the hair from actually accepting rosin and you're going to have some Playability problems so again, any one of these signs or any combination of them is a pretty good indication that it's time to have your Bowie, haired and I'll just end by saying you know having a well haired bow is incredibly important not only for playability of your Instrument, but also for you know, maintaining the longevity of your bow, so you want to keep them on and keep this in mind and also keep in mind that we're here at the repair shop always available to answer any additional questions that you might have about. Thank you. You