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I have only had my bow since Friday night and I have already broken three hairs on my bow. Am I doing something wrong, or is that normal... I have been practicing a lot... Pretty much five minutes at a time all day long... but still, that seems like a LOT of hairs to break!
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Are you breaking them when you take your bow out?
I broke a bunch of hairs when I first started out over the course of a few months. I still have a hard time with bow hair getting stuck in bow fastener in my case sometimes. Both my teacher and the luthier I go to said it was normal for beginners.
Just be careful when removing your bow from your case
If, by chance, though, you see bugs in your case, they might be the problem.
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I think a few hair breaks in the beginning is fine...and to be expected.
What 2ndfiddle said about bow bugs. (although I have never experienced that)
But I have had a bow hair breaking spree here and there over time. Nothing seemed to really be a big deal. I have all my original bows from when I started.
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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BUGS????? Oh no! NOT BUGS!!!! How big are they?
Hopefully it is just a beginners thing and NOT BUGS!!!!!
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Bow bugs are very tiny (wiki says up to 3mm), but if you have them you'll be able to tell, you'll see their dead shells in your case. Also, my luthier said that bow bugs will typically stay near the frog of the bow and will eat the base of the hairs first in a uniform line.
You won't be bothered by bow bugs if you practice enough, they only like to stay in undisturbed areas. If you are worried though, take a cotton ball and put a few drops of cedar oil and keep that in your case, it is toxic to them and (possibly) nice smelling to you!
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Great! My husband is a carver so we have a LOT of cedar around!
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If you don't tighten your bow enough (approximately a pencil width in the middle at it's closest point) the stick will press against the hairs too much when playing hard and loud. That wears the hair pretty quickly. Otherwise, it might just be a fluke or, who knows, bugs??? I'm not familiar with the bugs though.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
Bow bugs are actually carpet mites. They hate sunlight so keep your bow out of the case unless you're taking it somewhere.
I just posted in another thread a couple days ago that I've had three bows over the past 20 years destroyed by bow bugs. After I found this out a few years ago, my bows are never in the case.
As for hairs breaking on my bows, I've only had a couple hairs that were broken and that was only when I took them out of the shipping tube "Fiddlershop" ships them in, otherwise I've never had hairs break from playing and believe me, I play a lot, sometimes 5 or 6 hours a day.
Ken.
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