Making a Parisian-eye ring

A step-by-step guide to this intricate part of bow repair

Welcome to the next instalment of my repair of a Morizot Frères Parisian eye. In my last Trade Secrets article (November 2021), I began the repair by making a custom hole cutter to deepen the very shallow ring channel so that a replacement ring would securely fit. Please refer back to that issue for ‘before’ pictures, as well as proper context for this article.

Frog with prepared nickel strip

1 Our frog was made with nickelsilver fittings. I am not aware of a commercially available nickel-silver tube in the dimensions needed, so I had to make one from scratch using sheet stock. I cut out a 2x 25mm strip and, as I only have 1mm stock to hand, rolled it down to 0.7mm. I then annealed the strip to re-soften the metal.

Diagram of dovetailed ends

ALL PHOTOS ERIC LANE

2 The original ring was fashioned hastily (quantity over quality!) and its wall thickness varied from 0.3 to 0.6mm. In an effort to mimic the original I chose to make a thickwalled ring of undersized diameter, and hammer it irregularly on my mandrel to the final inner diameter (ID). One of the hardest things for bow makers to accept is the making of imperfect parts for the preservation of the original maker’s style. I opted to compromise with Maison Morizot and varied my wall thickness only by 0.15mm or so, instead of 0.3mm, to keep peace with all parties. The strip was cut to length for a target of 0.6mm under the final diameter. This length was based on my ring chart –a jeweller’s chart of lengths needed to achieve diameters over various material thicknesses. Then the ends were slightly dovetailed, as shown in the diagram.

Bending strip around the drill bit shank

3 I then bent the strip around the butt-end of a 7mm drill bit and cleaned the joint with alcohol.

Ready for soldering

4 Next, I made a clamp ring out of wire. I have found that a thick gauge of wire sits off the ring right at the twist, and if I orient my solder joint right to that spot I avoid the added hassle of having to file off the soldered wire from my ring. I fluxed the joining surfaces before finally twisting the wire and closing the gap. The dovetailed ends facilitate a good joint.

5a Soldering

5b Solder build-up

5 The ring was soldered over my alcohol lamp using Easy-Flo silver solder (5a). My wire gap was a success as the wire completely avoided the flow of solder. A half-round needle file was used to bring the soldered area back down to 0.7mm wall thickness (5b).

Brute hammering and mark on mandrel

6 My final ID is 7.6mm so I marked my mandrel at that diameter. I then hastily hammered the ring using a more substantial hammer than usual as my goal was variation of wall thickness over evenness. With my ID reached, I measured the wall thickness all around using my callipers. I filed the outside of the ring to achieve 0.45–0.6mm thickness, being mindful not to file out my hammered variation. Filing thin rings diagonally on my mandrel lessens my tendency to rock the file side to side.

Filing ring on mandrel

7 When the ring fit, I applied some glue sparingly to the ring channel using my scribe. I did not want to completely fill the channel with glue as gaps in the ring fit are in keeping with the maker’s results. Any excess glue was removed. Pressing the ring in with the blank section of my crossing file, and tapping with my pin hammer, fully seated the ring in the channel. I then let it dry overnight.

After the glue was properly set, I put two layers of blue painter’s tape over the entire face of the frog and proceeded to file the new ring flush with the tape using my coarse crossing file.

8a Roughing out with protective tape

8b Tape removed, too much lift to ring

8c Polishing the ring with the Scotch tape in place

8 When an old frog is closely inspected, you will notice that most of the metal parts sit ‘proud’ of the surrounding ebony. This is because the ebony has continued to dry out over the decades and has shrunk in all dimensions. By contrast, the metal fittings have not shrunk and are now relatively too large for the ebony core. Filing flush to the tape gives an even ring step that follows the frog’s curvature. In our frog’s case, two layers of blue tape yielded too much of a step (compared to the frog’s other fittings) so I switched to a finer file and removed more material. First I used only one layer of blue tape and then settled on a single layer of my thinnest clear Scotch wrapping tape.

The exposed face of the ring was lightly polished with the tape intact, using 800- and 1,500-grit sandpaper wrapped around my file. The tape was then removed and any burrs lifted with my thumbnail.

9 I then moved on to the antiquing. Careful consideration must be made to match the level of wear of the new ring with the wear already present in the other areas of the frog. This particular frog carried minimal wear all around so my antiquing was comparably minimal. The finger-side ring and eye are always more worn than the player’s side due to the constant contact of this eye with the player’s finger. Using the intact player’s-side eye as a reference, I chose to round off the corners using only a leather strop and blue compound. A more-worn look would require a coarser abrasive.

When I was happy with the level of wear, I heated the ring in situ using the tip of my soldering iron just until the glue bubbled abit. I’ve found this trick gives the ring a more aged look by highlighting the gaps between the ring and the ebony.

Finished but not finished

The application of chemicals with a very fine brush finished the job. First I used very strong ammonia to bring out the yellowish quality of the nickel and reduce its shine. After wiping the ammonia off with a damp paper towel I applied a commercial tarnishing agent made for the jewellery industry. I re-wiped with the damp towel and hand-buffed the ring with a cloth to the desired tarnish level.

10a Finished eye with original

10b Original eye on other side for comparison

10 While the process may have been far more complicated than you would have ever imagined, I hope you will agree with me that the end results are quite satisfactory – in spite of those intentional ‘warts’.