Bows must be periodically rehaired. This should be performed by professional repair technicians.
Rehairing is done when too many of the hairs are broken, or the hair is dirty, or has lost its
friction. Sometimes changing the whole bow can be easier and cheaper than rehairing the old
bow, especially with small fractional sized bows.
Bows sometimes lose their correct camber and need to be recambered using the same heating
method as is used in the original manufacture. This should be performed by professional repair
technicians.
A bow stick should be wiped clean after every use. A soft, non-abrasive, clean cloth (lint free) with
no oils or chemicals of any kind, should be used. There are special untreated cloths marketed for
the cleaning of instruments and bows; there are also many types of cleansers and polishes for
stringed instruments that can be used on bows. If the bow is wiped properly after every use,
cleansers and polishes are pretty much unnecessary. (If you feel the need to polish your bow
stick, first use a drop on a small area of the stick to make sure it won’t damage or discolor your
finish.) Never use any kind of commercial cleanser on a bow (or stringed instrument) and keep all
chemicals, cleansers etc. away from the hair.
Grip or winding of the bow must occasionally be replaced to maintain a good grip and protect the
wood.
Strings
Always clean your violin strings after playing. Keep a lint-free cloth inside your case and wipe off
all the rosin dust and dirt from your strings after each time you play. This will make a striking
difference to the sound.
Strings will slowly deteriorate. Usually, within six months they start to lose much of their tone
quality and begin to sound dull and dead. This occurs even if the violin is not being played.
Old strings are lifeless and dull sounding. They should be replaced with new strings. The finest
instrument will not sound good with poor strings. The strings should be replaced one at a time.
When you need to change an entire set of strings, do not remove all of the old strings at one
time. This will cause you to lose the correct bridge placement and the lack of tension can cause
the soundpost to fall over.
To change your strings follow the steps below:
Adjust the fine tuner so that it is in the middle of its range.
Insert the ball end of the string around the hooks of fine tuner and lightly pull
Insert the other end of the string through the hole in the peg and wind it by turning the
peg clockwise. Align the string on the bridge by running it through the groove that was
made from the old string.
Wind the string evenly from the center of the peg to just before the edge of the pegbox.
Tighten the string until you get close to the desired pitch.
Use the fine tuner to lock the string into pitch
Check the bridge’s adjustment, guarding against the to edge being pulled toward the
fingerboard excessively while bring the new strings up to pitch gradually.
Things to keep in mind
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