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Regulars
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It is always an exciting prospect for me to repurpose technology. Tungsten has the same density as Gold, so it should make an efficient bow wrapping material. I recently discovered that Gold plated Tungsten wire is used on high end copying equipment as a corona discharge media. It appears to be malleable.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Very cool Irv. That should look great!!!
Pictures please.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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The person selling this material said that it would easily wrap around the diameter of a wooden pencil. Unfortunately, he is selling it $2/ft plus shipping. I got over a pound of regular tungsten wire without any plating to practice with.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Then you must get it right the first time. 🙂
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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I ran some numbers on the cost of a gold plated tungsten wire wrap. The frog end of my carbon bow is 0.36” thick. Assuming a 1.5 inch long wrap and a wire thickness of 0.01” I would need 150 wraps. This equates to 170 inches of wire, or about 14 feet. At a cost of $2 per foot, the material cost of the wrap is $28. No cheap, but doable.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Cool. Are you doing it?
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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I just purchased over a pound of 99.5 percent pure tungsten wire (sort of a grey color). I don’t think that I will be able to use a wrap machine with it, since it appears to work harden very quickly. Hand wrapping should work fine, since it can bend around a tight radius without a problem.
Another concern is that Andreas Grütter wrote that when he removes silver wrap on older bows (designed to work with gut strings), their sound dramatically improves. I don’t want to spend the time on split bamboo bows, and damage the sound with a wrap.
I will surely try it on something, and will provide a picture or two for sure.
It is strange that gold is the standard as a bow wrapping material, and I cannot find any reference on the use of tungsten, which has an identical density.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
Regulars
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Just a guess, Tungsten was not really used much until early 1900 and then it was for lighting filaments, by then the use of Gold and Silver, whale bone etc. was well established and some times traditions out weigh's new ideas.
Mark
Master the Frog and you have mastered the bow.
Albert Sammons
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Still looking forward to the pictures of the finished product. 🙂
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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Hi Fiddlerman. I have not completed my bow wrapping machine and I don’t have a bow in need of wrapping, but the tungsten has arrived and I am anxious to see the weight of the wrap. I am going to “cave man” it and use a weighted phone book to tension the wire. I am going to wrap it around a new wood pencil for the picture and to arrive at a wrap weight per inch. This will be raw tungsten without any plating.
Did you ever find out the gauge of wire your luthiers use?
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
Regulars
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I have just learned that my 0.010” diameter tungsten wire is 28 gauge.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
Regulars
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I just did a proof of concept wrap of 0.010” diameter tungsten wire on a pencil. 
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
Regulars
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I would say the concept worked.
Mark
Master the Frog and you have mastered the bow.
Albert Sammons
Regulars
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I think that the cleanest method of finishing off the ends would be to tig weld them. Solder is not an option. The wire is so stiff that pulling it under the wrap would be difficult.
I bet that this stuff would make a great e string.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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When I saw photo of the tungsten wrapping before reading the text, I thought you had manufactured a yellow bow (silly me.)
I see a new E string experiment coming out of Irv's lab soon:
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Irv said
Hi Fiddlerman..........Did you ever find out the gauge of wire your luthiers use?
Yes, 0.25 or 0.30 gauge.
Irv said
I just did a proof of concept wrap of 0.010” diameter tungsten wire on a pencil.
Looks great. 🙂
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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Hi Fiddlerman. Thanks for the comment. I like the way it looks without plating. Material is immune from corrosion so acidic fingers will not be a problem. Should not cause allergic reactions either. The melting point is 6,200 F (actually, it never melts. It vaporizes).
Next stop is to see if I can tig weld the coils together and grind ends away without burning the wood.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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Good luck with that Irv.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Regulars
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Steveduf mentioned that he had seen a whale bone wrap started by the use of a small hole in the stick. I could do the same with the tungsten. I could overwrap the other end with silk thread, which would be hidden under the leather grip.
I think that the argon gas used to create an oxygen free environment during tig welding would keep the stick from burning, but the above should be an acceptable back up plan.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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An interesting turn of events regarding the tungsten bow wrap. I found a local plating company that is heavily involved in gold plating guitar strings. They never return my phone calls.
I then found someone with “new old stock” 24 K gold plated tungsten ribbon 0.015 inch by 0.004 inch, which I think would function perfectly as a wrap and should easily solder. I purchased a spool of it and I will do a pencil wrap when it arrives.
Success is the progressive realisation of a worthy ideal. —Earl Nightingale.
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