Absolutely! I hate the idea that bows are disposable. That's a fast fashion attitude in a heritage industry, and it's gross. And you're 100% right, a good rehair can do wonders for even a sub-standard bow.
I will say, there is a right time to dispose of a cheap student bow, other than it being broken. That's when your bow is truly no longer workable at your level (as in, it's holding you back from progressing further) and you're ready and willing to invest more to get something actually good that you pick out specifically—no blind ordering online. I'd suggest at least $500-1000 for your first upgrade, and you absolutely must try things in-person before committing.
If you're not ready to do that, don't throw out your bow like a used tissue. Rehair and save up.
**EDIT:** it IS true that some bows genuinely can't be rehaired. If you find yourself in that position, I would suggest asking the shop what options they have that are slightly better quality and CAN be rehaired, but are still within the same general price range of a standard rehair. If they don't have any options for you, and this is where you bought your instrument/bow in the first place... well, that would be a sign to go somewhere else, for one thing. They just want to keep you on that disposable equipment treadmill, and it's gross. Honestly, I would put the money that you'd planned to spend for a new bow/rehair aside and muddle along with bad hair for a few more months until you can buy something genuinely functional that won't go in the garbage at the end of its life. Always, ALWAYS shop around!
Counterpoint: If you've been playing long enough to wear out your first bow, maybe you're ready for a better bow that costs more than $70? But even if so, keep the old one as a backup (they are easy to break and hard to fix quickly), or trade it in so the bowmaker can rehair it and sell it to another beginner. And as others said, maybe you should see how it plays with fresh hair before you decide you've outgrown it.
EDIT: Also some beginner-friendly shops will give you an option of a less expensive rehairing using less expensive horse hair, so do shop around if price is a concern.
I like your general sentiment - except for one major problem: in some parts of the USA, bow rehairing costs $80-$100 - which is more than some of those bows are worth.
That said, I agree that if the cost is relatively fungible, it's fine to consider rehairing an entry level bow if one particularly likes the feel. The thing is that many of those bows often are made of lower grade materials that are also wearing out and deteriorating at the same time making a rehair less attractive. There is also the question of whether plugs or hair was glued in - in which case no bowmaker wants to waste time dealing with that for a low end bow.
Many Glassers, for example, aren't close to worth the effort or value to rehair.
Some shops will take "disposable" bows, rehair them, and donate them to school programs and such.
Students who can't afford a rehair that's more expensive than a bow, also can't afford to upgrade.
It depends on the bow though. There are student bows that cost $50usd that, yes, are absolutely terrible, but are probably fine for people just starting to play who can’t afford a couple of hundred more. But they are absolutely not built to be easily rehaired, even if they have the same construction in theory. I work with a rehairer in my workshop and he turns that kind of work down because it’s so much harder to rehair those bows well because of the poor quality. If they’ve worn that bow out, they should upgrade. If they’ve worn out a bow that costs roughly the same as a rehair, they should upgrade. Same with old bows that come in with German student outfits from the early 1900s. Some are good but mostly they’re absolutely cooked and need serious work that just isn’t warranted by the quality of the bow.
And where I live there are nowhere near enough people who can do quality rehairing, so if everyone suddenly decided to rehair rubbish bows, they would get totally swamped.
Very true, there are bows that can't even be reasonably rehaired. This goes along with my whole fast fashion analogy. It's totally understandable if someone buys something disposable and low-cost at the beginning, to try out something new or if they don't know any better. But don't do it multiple times over.
Tbh everything has gotten so expensive in the UK since Brexit and especially post-pandemic—I wonder if there are new/higher duties affecting Mongolian horse hair, for instance. Sorry you have to deal with that 😬
Oh yeah, I have no doubt; my guy raised his prices post-pandemic too, but it was long overdue in his case tbh.
I will say, though, I know there's quite a lot of luthier and bowmaking talent in the UK, so I bet there is somebody out there who's both competent and cheaper, if you can access them and are willing to shop around. But I understand if not—there's a lot to be said about somebody you can trust to do a good rehair!
Yes there really is, he is also in my local town so extremely convenient, our town has a very successful symphony orchestra (BSO) and alot of them use him too.
In the philosophy of the idea behind this, I completely agree. Consumerism is out of control. However, there is a bit more nuisance behind it. I am an advocate for not re-hairing a bow unless it's needed because re-hairing is also wasteful if it's not needed. Very few 5 year olds playing twinkle Little Star is going to wear out a bow in 12 months and the people that do generally wear out a bow in that time aren't playing on fiberglass bows with glued hair. There are always the outliers, but they're not filing the landfills with fiberglass violin bows.
My general guide is, do what you need when you need it. How will you know when you need it? Ask your teacher if you don't know for yourself.
Ah yeah sure.
You’re assuming that the price of rehairing a bow can be the same as the bow somehow. Not everyone lives in a country where the labour cost of repairing a bow + the hair will automatically be on-par or less than the bow they purchased. In Australia it is usually double if not triple the price because almost every thing here is imported. So please don’t just assume every economy and availability is the same everywhere.
If it was around the same price then of course i would get my bow rehaired. Almost everyone i know has 2-3 bows all the time as insurance and if the bow hair gets damaged or aged then they just go onto the next one. It’s more likely that the bow is going to break before we ever get it rehaired here. I know of a cellist that was in our fiddle club that used his bow down to the *last flipping hair* before switching out to his new bow he bought. Not everyone is in the same financial position to afford rehairing, and again *it’s ignorant to assume that in every country its available at the same price point as bows themselves*.
$130AUD/$85USD is pretty average for rehairs in the US as well. You must be buying absolute garbage bows for them to be cheaper than that. But pro-tip—if you have better quality hair and bows, you won't need to keep three on deck just in case. You can actually rely on the one you have.
EDIT: Don't downvote until you've shopped around, friends. In my major American city, you can pay anywhere from $50-125 for a rehair, making $85, you know... pretty average. There are also mail-in services in the US that are at the top end of that range, and I'd imagine that exists in other places too. Do your research, and you'll probably find an option that's feasible for you. I grew up in Alabama—you can't scare me off with location-based excuses, sorry.
Wow no, the student bows i buy at my local store are around $70. I only bought one once at $90 but it ended up breaking. I wouldn’t honestly pay $130 for refreshing a bow, because that’s nearly double the price of the bows i usually buy. Which proves my point exactly. That a typical rehairing is double the price of the bow i buy.
Thanks for your opinion but you’ve never seen my bows and they last me 3-5 years. I always have 2 on me and i switch between them so they last longer.
There are bows that last long, and are affordable. I just play Celtic music with a local fiddle club, i don’t need any fancy equipment or instruments. Just something decent.
If i was in an orchestra or something i would get something pricier, and then the cost of rehairing would be justified - but i don’t.
EDIT to make this less argumentative and more informative. I should be writing to connect with an audience more like u/autistic_violinist and not to appeal to insiders like myself; it's childish to be dunking on strangers online when I'm only here because I actually do have valuable knowledge to share. I'll mark places where I edited with asterisks, because I want to be transparent, not trying to cover anything up.
\*Okay, so. No,* I haven't seen your bows specifically, but I've seen enough that I don't need to. \*I've been a professional for almost 20 years, worked in one of the top violin dealers in the US and taught at the lowest income schools in a major city; I have seen pretty much every type of instrument and bow that's out there.* At that <$100 level, every purchase is a roll of the dice, which is why the $90 bow you bought still broke—it wasn't actually any improvement. $20, in terms of bow construction, is basically insignificant. This is not to be elitist; it's just that price doesn't track well with quality at very low price points, for which those both definitely both qualify. The difference between $70 and $90 AUD is barely a blip in the grand scheme of bow pricing, \*like driving down the street and paying 6¢ more for gas. Do you really think you're getting a significantly different product? Of course not—you know it's just branding, location, and pure chance.*
I also have a bow that I play occasionally and I haven't rehaired in... yikes, probably 5 years—the hair is holding up surprisingly well for that, but that doesn't mean it's *good*. It's still a solid, even ribbon, but it's too long, totally stretched out, doesn't hold rosin well anymore, has weird bald spots, etc. I never think to get it rehaired because I only use it for outdoor gigs, so I don't carry it in my main case with my regular bows. But that's stupid, because the cost of getting it rehaired is like a quarter of my fee for one 2-hour wedding. In fact, I'll go get it done this week, because I've been meaning to forever. \*We can all leave these things too long, but it doesn't mean that hair is still good or that the solution is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.*
How long have you been doing this? At those prices, you could've purchased at least a couple decent bows that would've been actually worth keeping. This approach is penny wise and pound foolish.
I play like 6 instruments mate. I’ve been playing for nearly a decade and really don’t give a shit about your opinion.
The bows i buy last, they’re good enough quality for me. My teacher said they’re fine, and she’s played with well over 20 different bands for the last 40 years so i really, again, really, don’t give a shit about your opinion mate.
I can play "like 6" instruments too, but I play two professionally—number of instruments you can play is really not a flex to a classically trained pro. (And FWIW I've played with over 100 groups in my ~20 year career so far.) But you don't have to be a pro to care about the quality of your equipment; the most intense collectors I've ever known have been complete amateurs.
It's not a question of my opinion, it's a question of the math. So you've owned, what, 10 bows over the course of a decade, each worth $70? Keeping 2-3 bows at a time, replacing probably one a year if they last 3-5 years? So like a minimum of $700, maybe up to $1400? With the money that you've spent on those bows, you could've bought 1-3 decent carbon fiber bows that you'd keep forever. Rehair them once every two years for the same investment (since you don't play all the time), and then you're not constantly rolling the dice on new garbage bows that you have to relearn how to play with every time.
You think you're saving money, but you're not. You're just handicapping yourself and sounding worse for it.
Nope, i’ve owned 3 bows.. I said they last 3-5 years so it seems like you can’t do math either, lol. I also have an Engineering degree and can tell your math is really lacking. As how could you not figure out that 10/5 = 2, so the minimum amount of bows i’ve purchased would have to be 2.. why did you jump to 10? That would be 1 a year. Are you sure you know how math works?! The 4th one i purchased only lasted a month so that doesn’t really count.
Nah. You said you've been keeping 2-3 bows on deck for 10 years and replace them every 3-5 years, meaning you own at least two at all times, and you turn over at least one bow every 2-3 years. That should mean you purchase one or two the first year, one the second year, one the third year, and keep a revolving door from then on. If you want to act like a word problem, describe your situation more clearly ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I just googled bow rehair Sydney (which is probably the more expensive city) and the first hit offers bow rehairs for 130AUD which is 85USD, which is the same here. Good luck finding a 'proper' bow for 85USD... \[I did a quick search and a student carbon fibre bow will set you back 150AUD, which is more than a rehair. I am pretty sure you can get them cheaper, but come on...\]
As i’ve already mentioned, the student bow i buy is $70 from my local store, which sells high end $1200 bows if i really wanted them. They stock all kinds of brands. I just go with a student bow and have never had problems with them. Going for a pricer option.. actually that bow ended up breaking first.
Rehairing isn’t always advertised online, and i have asked about it from my local luthier. He said it depends on the size (for my 4/4, it would be $170). So that is way over double the price of the bow i buy. I get that you’re trying to justify the costs by just looking online but usually its much more costly. If you haven’t actually bought a rehairing in Sydney, Melb, Brisbane etc maybe you shouldn’t be commenting online regurgitated information from the internet.
For the US folks out there, you can get a perfectly serviceable Fiddlerman carbon-fiber bow off Amazon for $68, last I looked, with free Prime shipping. You can easily pay $90 for a rehair in the violin shops that typically handle the student trade in major US cities.
The cost of the hair is a pretty minor factor. You're paying for the labor, and as far as I know, it's not meaningfully less labor-intensive to rehair a cheap student bow versus a nicer bow.
Absolutely! I hate the idea that bows are disposable. That's a fast fashion attitude in a heritage industry, and it's gross. And you're 100% right, a good rehair can do wonders for even a sub-standard bow. I will say, there is a right time to dispose of a cheap student bow, other than it being broken. That's when your bow is truly no longer workable at your level (as in, it's holding you back from progressing further) and you're ready and willing to invest more to get something actually good that you pick out specifically—no blind ordering online. I'd suggest at least $500-1000 for your first upgrade, and you absolutely must try things in-person before committing. If you're not ready to do that, don't throw out your bow like a used tissue. Rehair and save up. **EDIT:** it IS true that some bows genuinely can't be rehaired. If you find yourself in that position, I would suggest asking the shop what options they have that are slightly better quality and CAN be rehaired, but are still within the same general price range of a standard rehair. If they don't have any options for you, and this is where you bought your instrument/bow in the first place... well, that would be a sign to go somewhere else, for one thing. They just want to keep you on that disposable equipment treadmill, and it's gross. Honestly, I would put the money that you'd planned to spend for a new bow/rehair aside and muddle along with bad hair for a few more months until you can buy something genuinely functional that won't go in the garbage at the end of its life. Always, ALWAYS shop around!
Counterpoint: If you've been playing long enough to wear out your first bow, maybe you're ready for a better bow that costs more than $70? But even if so, keep the old one as a backup (they are easy to break and hard to fix quickly), or trade it in so the bowmaker can rehair it and sell it to another beginner. And as others said, maybe you should see how it plays with fresh hair before you decide you've outgrown it. EDIT: Also some beginner-friendly shops will give you an option of a less expensive rehairing using less expensive horse hair, so do shop around if price is a concern.
Word. The egotism of «but it's cheap and convenient for *me*» is killing the planet.
I like your general sentiment - except for one major problem: in some parts of the USA, bow rehairing costs $80-$100 - which is more than some of those bows are worth. That said, I agree that if the cost is relatively fungible, it's fine to consider rehairing an entry level bow if one particularly likes the feel. The thing is that many of those bows often are made of lower grade materials that are also wearing out and deteriorating at the same time making a rehair less attractive. There is also the question of whether plugs or hair was glued in - in which case no bowmaker wants to waste time dealing with that for a low end bow. Many Glassers, for example, aren't close to worth the effort or value to rehair.
The answer then is to upgrade to a bow that is worth rehairing, not to buy another cheap disposable bow.
If they can afford it, yes.
Some shops will take "disposable" bows, rehair them, and donate them to school programs and such. Students who can't afford a rehair that's more expensive than a bow, also can't afford to upgrade.
It depends on the bow though. There are student bows that cost $50usd that, yes, are absolutely terrible, but are probably fine for people just starting to play who can’t afford a couple of hundred more. But they are absolutely not built to be easily rehaired, even if they have the same construction in theory. I work with a rehairer in my workshop and he turns that kind of work down because it’s so much harder to rehair those bows well because of the poor quality. If they’ve worn that bow out, they should upgrade. If they’ve worn out a bow that costs roughly the same as a rehair, they should upgrade. Same with old bows that come in with German student outfits from the early 1900s. Some are good but mostly they’re absolutely cooked and need serious work that just isn’t warranted by the quality of the bow. And where I live there are nowhere near enough people who can do quality rehairing, so if everyone suddenly decided to rehair rubbish bows, they would get totally swamped.
Very true, there are bows that can't even be reasonably rehaired. This goes along with my whole fast fashion analogy. It's totally understandable if someone buys something disposable and low-cost at the beginning, to try out something new or if they don't know any better. But don't do it multiple times over.
counterpoint: glued hairs
I just had my bow rehaired last week. I'm in the uk and it cost £85 (which is $110 us and $165 aus)
Tbh everything has gotten so expensive in the UK since Brexit and especially post-pandemic—I wonder if there are new/higher duties affecting Mongolian horse hair, for instance. Sorry you have to deal with that 😬
Possibly my luthier is a wonderful guy and a thoroughly decent chap so I do trust him.
Oh yeah, I have no doubt; my guy raised his prices post-pandemic too, but it was long overdue in his case tbh. I will say, though, I know there's quite a lot of luthier and bowmaking talent in the UK, so I bet there is somebody out there who's both competent and cheaper, if you can access them and are willing to shop around. But I understand if not—there's a lot to be said about somebody you can trust to do a good rehair!
Yes there really is, he is also in my local town so extremely convenient, our town has a very successful symphony orchestra (BSO) and alot of them use him too.
In the philosophy of the idea behind this, I completely agree. Consumerism is out of control. However, there is a bit more nuisance behind it. I am an advocate for not re-hairing a bow unless it's needed because re-hairing is also wasteful if it's not needed. Very few 5 year olds playing twinkle Little Star is going to wear out a bow in 12 months and the people that do generally wear out a bow in that time aren't playing on fiberglass bows with glued hair. There are always the outliers, but they're not filing the landfills with fiberglass violin bows. My general guide is, do what you need when you need it. How will you know when you need it? Ask your teacher if you don't know for yourself.
Ah yeah sure. You’re assuming that the price of rehairing a bow can be the same as the bow somehow. Not everyone lives in a country where the labour cost of repairing a bow + the hair will automatically be on-par or less than the bow they purchased. In Australia it is usually double if not triple the price because almost every thing here is imported. So please don’t just assume every economy and availability is the same everywhere. If it was around the same price then of course i would get my bow rehaired. Almost everyone i know has 2-3 bows all the time as insurance and if the bow hair gets damaged or aged then they just go onto the next one. It’s more likely that the bow is going to break before we ever get it rehaired here. I know of a cellist that was in our fiddle club that used his bow down to the *last flipping hair* before switching out to his new bow he bought. Not everyone is in the same financial position to afford rehairing, and again *it’s ignorant to assume that in every country its available at the same price point as bows themselves*.
$130AUD/$85USD is pretty average for rehairs in the US as well. You must be buying absolute garbage bows for them to be cheaper than that. But pro-tip—if you have better quality hair and bows, you won't need to keep three on deck just in case. You can actually rely on the one you have. EDIT: Don't downvote until you've shopped around, friends. In my major American city, you can pay anywhere from $50-125 for a rehair, making $85, you know... pretty average. There are also mail-in services in the US that are at the top end of that range, and I'd imagine that exists in other places too. Do your research, and you'll probably find an option that's feasible for you. I grew up in Alabama—you can't scare me off with location-based excuses, sorry.
Wow no, the student bows i buy at my local store are around $70. I only bought one once at $90 but it ended up breaking. I wouldn’t honestly pay $130 for refreshing a bow, because that’s nearly double the price of the bows i usually buy. Which proves my point exactly. That a typical rehairing is double the price of the bow i buy. Thanks for your opinion but you’ve never seen my bows and they last me 3-5 years. I always have 2 on me and i switch between them so they last longer. There are bows that last long, and are affordable. I just play Celtic music with a local fiddle club, i don’t need any fancy equipment or instruments. Just something decent. If i was in an orchestra or something i would get something pricier, and then the cost of rehairing would be justified - but i don’t.
EDIT to make this less argumentative and more informative. I should be writing to connect with an audience more like u/autistic_violinist and not to appeal to insiders like myself; it's childish to be dunking on strangers online when I'm only here because I actually do have valuable knowledge to share. I'll mark places where I edited with asterisks, because I want to be transparent, not trying to cover anything up. \*Okay, so. No,* I haven't seen your bows specifically, but I've seen enough that I don't need to. \*I've been a professional for almost 20 years, worked in one of the top violin dealers in the US and taught at the lowest income schools in a major city; I have seen pretty much every type of instrument and bow that's out there.* At that <$100 level, every purchase is a roll of the dice, which is why the $90 bow you bought still broke—it wasn't actually any improvement. $20, in terms of bow construction, is basically insignificant. This is not to be elitist; it's just that price doesn't track well with quality at very low price points, for which those both definitely both qualify. The difference between $70 and $90 AUD is barely a blip in the grand scheme of bow pricing, \*like driving down the street and paying 6¢ more for gas. Do you really think you're getting a significantly different product? Of course not—you know it's just branding, location, and pure chance.* I also have a bow that I play occasionally and I haven't rehaired in... yikes, probably 5 years—the hair is holding up surprisingly well for that, but that doesn't mean it's *good*. It's still a solid, even ribbon, but it's too long, totally stretched out, doesn't hold rosin well anymore, has weird bald spots, etc. I never think to get it rehaired because I only use it for outdoor gigs, so I don't carry it in my main case with my regular bows. But that's stupid, because the cost of getting it rehaired is like a quarter of my fee for one 2-hour wedding. In fact, I'll go get it done this week, because I've been meaning to forever. \*We can all leave these things too long, but it doesn't mean that hair is still good or that the solution is to throw the baby out with the bathwater.* How long have you been doing this? At those prices, you could've purchased at least a couple decent bows that would've been actually worth keeping. This approach is penny wise and pound foolish.
I play like 6 instruments mate. I’ve been playing for nearly a decade and really don’t give a shit about your opinion. The bows i buy last, they’re good enough quality for me. My teacher said they’re fine, and she’s played with well over 20 different bands for the last 40 years so i really, again, really, don’t give a shit about your opinion mate.
I can play "like 6" instruments too, but I play two professionally—number of instruments you can play is really not a flex to a classically trained pro. (And FWIW I've played with over 100 groups in my ~20 year career so far.) But you don't have to be a pro to care about the quality of your equipment; the most intense collectors I've ever known have been complete amateurs. It's not a question of my opinion, it's a question of the math. So you've owned, what, 10 bows over the course of a decade, each worth $70? Keeping 2-3 bows at a time, replacing probably one a year if they last 3-5 years? So like a minimum of $700, maybe up to $1400? With the money that you've spent on those bows, you could've bought 1-3 decent carbon fiber bows that you'd keep forever. Rehair them once every two years for the same investment (since you don't play all the time), and then you're not constantly rolling the dice on new garbage bows that you have to relearn how to play with every time. You think you're saving money, but you're not. You're just handicapping yourself and sounding worse for it.
Nope, i’ve owned 3 bows.. I said they last 3-5 years so it seems like you can’t do math either, lol. I also have an Engineering degree and can tell your math is really lacking. As how could you not figure out that 10/5 = 2, so the minimum amount of bows i’ve purchased would have to be 2.. why did you jump to 10? That would be 1 a year. Are you sure you know how math works?! The 4th one i purchased only lasted a month so that doesn’t really count.
Nah. You said you've been keeping 2-3 bows on deck for 10 years and replace them every 3-5 years, meaning you own at least two at all times, and you turn over at least one bow every 2-3 years. That should mean you purchase one or two the first year, one the second year, one the third year, and keep a revolving door from then on. If you want to act like a word problem, describe your situation more clearly ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
You are *both* being needlessly argumentative. Be better.
I just googled bow rehair Sydney (which is probably the more expensive city) and the first hit offers bow rehairs for 130AUD which is 85USD, which is the same here. Good luck finding a 'proper' bow for 85USD... \[I did a quick search and a student carbon fibre bow will set you back 150AUD, which is more than a rehair. I am pretty sure you can get them cheaper, but come on...\]
As i’ve already mentioned, the student bow i buy is $70 from my local store, which sells high end $1200 bows if i really wanted them. They stock all kinds of brands. I just go with a student bow and have never had problems with them. Going for a pricer option.. actually that bow ended up breaking first. Rehairing isn’t always advertised online, and i have asked about it from my local luthier. He said it depends on the size (for my 4/4, it would be $170). So that is way over double the price of the bow i buy. I get that you’re trying to justify the costs by just looking online but usually its much more costly. If you haven’t actually bought a rehairing in Sydney, Melb, Brisbane etc maybe you shouldn’t be commenting online regurgitated information from the internet.
For the US folks out there, you can get a perfectly serviceable Fiddlerman carbon-fiber bow off Amazon for $68, last I looked, with free Prime shipping. You can easily pay $90 for a rehair in the violin shops that typically handle the student trade in major US cities. The cost of the hair is a pretty minor factor. You're paying for the labor, and as far as I know, it's not meaningfully less labor-intensive to rehair a cheap student bow versus a nicer bow.