My New Bow
 

Congratulations
 

I was just admiring those pics over at the other forum. Looks good.

When are you going to start selling them?

Selling a bonafide Brunkalla bow? :eek: Are you nuts? It took me a whole year to get this thing. :o Not to mention waiting for the tree to grow....

It might be in an estate sale if no one in the family takes up double bass, otherwise you'll have to deal with Martin.

I was just joking, David. I meant I expected you to start selling copies of the bow to the rest of us.

How's the bow working out for you?

Oh, you were joking! ;) I get it, now. I admit the photos are a bit commercial looking. They'd make a good banner ad. Window light and a Canon R5. I'm a recovering professional photographer. I'll get over it.

So how's it working out? Well, you know after 3 days and two gigs, I definitely have a distinct impression that the hair is broken in! Honestly, this is the best bow I've ever played with. It is also the most expensive, but not as expensive as these come. In the middle somewhere probably. It has so many advantages over my old bows, which were not bad for beginner bows, that it will be hard to pick one of those up again until the Brunkalla needs a re-hair.

It was time for a better bow. My technique was kind of hitting a wall and this bow has opened some doors. A couple of years ago, I don't think I would have been able to appreciate the difference as much. It starts the low big strings much more easily than my old bows and the dynamic possibilities are extended at both ends. It can go from a whisper to a growl in a couple of inches of a stroke and I can play whole passages on the two inches of hair right at the tip. Cranking up the tension is really different. It has a long range in the twist (which is also smooth as silk) that seems to be almost the same before it gets really tight, so it is less tension critical and the performance is really consistent within a range.

I always had a hard time getting the tension just right on the brazilwood bows and this one just plays good whether the hair is relatively loose or somewhat tighter. It doesn't get too tight as quickly. I don't know if that is the wood (Osage Orange) or just the skill of the maker or some of both. I think I'm set with a good German bow for a long time. Somewhere down the road I might get him to make me a French bow, but for now this one is doing what I needed.

nice..
 

That's a beautiful looking Bow David. Is there a specific German model he used to base your Bow design on?

His comment via e-mail (he read your question) was that rough dimensions only were borrowed and the only real influence worth mentioning is Tourte, which could describe a lot of bows. It might be the first German bass bow that he has made. He didn't say.

He did mention that he knows of no other makers that have used Osage Orange. He was certainly the only maker that was actively using it that I found when I was searching for an Osage bow. I did find two other mentions, both historical in nature. One was a baroque violin bow that was made for plausible authenticity for Daniel Slosberg portraying frontier fiddler Pierre Cruzatte, the early 19th century American fiddler who accompanied Lewis and Clark. I found the article again googling and it does mention the other maker. It was several years ago when I was trying to find any information about that wood for stringed instrument bows. It is purely coincidental that I thought it might be a good candidate among North American trees and that Martin was already making some bows from it.