Yea, I tried making an unboxing and testing video for you, but it came out horribly so I decided not to post it Plus the violin is still garbage so you can't really hear much difference anyway.. it's more of a 'you can feel it that it glides a bit more straight and doesn't shake' kind of thing :)) 

One thing though... I have never.. ever dropped a bow before and I dropped this CF bow at least 3 times today.. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.. or something you just have to get used to, since the gap between the leather and the frog is slightly wider than my other bows so it feels a bit different.. 

Edit: I did make this just now, trying to simply play a song... As you can see it's a bow and it does what it's supposed to

However I think I might have messed up my bridge the last time I thinned it.. maybe it's too thin now cuz I cannot get a consistent tone and it's not because of the bow.. if I go anywhere behind halfway from the bridge I either get a whistly weak sound or an overdrivven (bridge) sound depending on the pressure.. even though I'm nowhere near the bridge yet.. If I go the other way the sound is just too weak as it's supposed to... but it's rarely clear even in the most optimal playing position.. Oh well, I suppose it might be a good thing practicing with an over-sensitive violin lol... if I can get a nice consistent tone from this.. I'll be able to play a chair Might carve a new one if it annoys me too much, otherwise I'll just go with it till my real violin gets finished.. but bottom line.. the FM CF bow is good  

Not really, I'm like 250 km from there... Actually... come to think about it I think I've never been there.. (lame) 

But it's okay If it falls out to the point where it's unusable.. I'll still have a nice stick that says 'Fiddlerman' on it, so well worth the price lol

Or if it gets that bad I'll try to see if I can get the people at where my violin is being made to rehair it.. or maybe even buy some horse-hair and 'learn the trade' My current violin is pretty 'makeshift' anyway.. why not add a makeshift bow?  

Charles said
Calling Fiddlershop may not be practical, given international rates, but email them. I guarantee they'll take care of you one way or another. They take issues like the condition of that bow quite seriously, and will get one that works well in your hands one way or another.  

I don't really wanna bug them if that makes any sense Like.. normally if it was a local shop, sure I'd take it back and show it to them. But given that it's international, these are legit risks that I kinda accepted before making the purchase. Don't wanna be unreasonable.. 

I mean for starters it already cost me $105 instead of the normal $67 with the shipping and customs (and even that's with Fiddlershop supporting the price difference between standard and Fedex shipping), and I bet it would cost almost as much to ship it back and forth at which point our customs might jump at the opportunity to try and force some import taxes on it again, despite the declared value being 0 (they're really suspicious in that regard) :)) It just seems too complicated to be worth the hassle.. at the end of the day it's just a bow and it IS working, though the lifespan might be shorter than expected, but it's a decent bow so I'm fine with it.

Plus I can't really fault Fiddlershop, since this is sort of outside of their control. This thing came factory-sealed so it's not like they can test it like they do with violins so I still haven't lost confidence in them and this wouldn't stop me from making a future order  

zpilot said
I worked many years in Quality Assurance and I know that a supplier wants to know about problems like this.  It's the only way they can know how their manufacturers are performing.  It's important to protecting and building their brand.    

Yes, that's kind of what crossed my mind when I made the video, so in case Fiddlerman sees it he can maybe check if an entire shipment was like that or something. 

As for my bow.., I removed a few of those hairs that were coming out on their own (like 10 more) and it still has plenty to play with so it's not an issue atm. If more start falling out in the near future I might drop an email to Mike as you guys suggested. But for now it's working I even made a tutorial using it so go check it out in the Share topic!