Bow woods

[Dave Whitla]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

What if a great maker used Brazilwood and a hacker of a maker Pernambuco? Which is better? The Wood or the maker?

Certainly can't argue with that, Ken. As I said, I've only tried a couple of brazilwood bows and that was my impression. I'm sure plenty of hackers have used pernambuco, and I have played many expensive and not so expensive pernambuco bows that I didn't like very much. Not sure if many master bowmakers have use brazilwood. Again, that's probably above my pay grade

(A quick online check says that 'brazilwood' refers to a family of trees, but that for bowmaking purposes pernambuco is Caesalpinia echinata and brazilwood is anything else from the family, but another site said that they're from different parts of the same tree...)