The need for speed

Making a bow in three days is a tall order for anyone – but for six bow makers together? Pierre Nehr explains how April’s ‘Bow Rush’ event in Paris became an educational experience for all concerned

MAKINGMATTERS

Points of interest to violin and bow makers

Emmanuel Carlier (right) bending the bow stick alongside his former mentor Gilles Duhaut

In 2019 the organisers of the Franco-European Viola Association, Anne-Aurore Anstett and Jacques Borsarello, approached me with a unique proposition. At their most recent congress, they had organised a number of luthiers to collaborate on making a viola in just three days. The task had been successful and now they wanted my help to expand the project: would it be possible for six bow makers to work together on a single viola bow? This, they thought, would enable the participants to witness their own working methods in close proximity, and hopefully provide an interesting spectacle for the assembled crowd of musicians, luthiers and bow makers at the next event. The three-day time limit gave us the title of the project: ‘Bow Rush’.

‘WE HAVE A SOLITARY PROFESSION, AND IT IS ALWAYS REWARDING TO WITNESS OTHER ARTISANS AT WORK’ –

The idea sounded both crazy and unprecedented (for me, finishing a bow normally takes around two weeks), so of course I said yes to it. Among other things, bow making is a craft taught by a master bow maker to an apprentice, meaning that techniques and manufacturing conventions can vary wildly between makers. And even though all of us descend in some way from the ‘Mirecourt school’, and we’re all familiar with each other’s bows, none of us had ever observed one another at work. So the six people I contacted straight away were winners at the 2019 competition:

Victor Bernard, Doriane Bodart, Niall Flemming, Samuel Barreau, Alexandre Micheau and Jon Hess. All took no time to accept the challenge, although the last two had to drop out and were replaced by Emmanuel Carlier and Henry Guerra.

Because of the pandemic, the next event was rescheduled to April 2022. It took place as usual at the Conservatoire de Paris, a stone’s throw from the famous Rue de Rome where so many historic violin shops have been located in past centuries. As well as hosting Bow Rush, the congress aims to promote the viola through concerts, competitions for young musicians, masterclasses and a competition/exhibition of violins and contemporary bows.

First of all, we had to establish some ground rules. Making the frog and button requires a huge amount of concentration, and there were several elements that would be very difficult to execute on the spot: for instance, drilling the pins, mortise and eyelet, and making the button with a hand drill. We therefore decided to make only the stick at the congress venue, and create the frog and button separately at one of our workshops.

We set the workbench in the middle of the room and began by planing the stick. The plan was to donate the bow as part of the prize for the winner of the playing competition. Not knowing yet who that would be, we chose to make a stick that was responsive and easy to play, from dense, fine-grained pernambuco.

Everyone brought their own tools, which was an education in itself: the variety of planes, scissors and knives with different blade angles was fascinating.

For myself, I was able to demonstrate the scissors I’d had made by a specialist craftsman in Kyoto, Japan, while my planes were made on vintage models by a man I know in Brazil. Having witnessed their quality, some of the bow makers took the opportunity to order a set of planes from him.

As we worked, we very quickly found that an audience was developing around us. More than 15 other bow makers were watching us at work, along with instrument makers and interested laymen. We’d never felt an atmosphere like this while working before. Victor Bernard recalled: ‘We sometimes had more colleagues watching us than members of the public. It was a great moment of personal enrichment.’

Doriane Bodart checks the camber of the stick

CABLE PHOTO DORIANE BODART. OTHER PHOTOS PIERRE NEHR

Once the roughing-out of the stick was finished, we had to bend it. The camber was possibly the most important step we had to undertake together. Since everyone has their own method, it was Emmanuel Carlier who offered to do a ‘draft camber’ for us, which took several steps. I learnt to make the camber in one go, while the stick is hot. Emmanuel, on the other hand, would heat the stick, add the camber, let it cool, plane it, and then reheat it to give it its final camber. This multi-step technique was fascinating to watch and produced a very good result.

‘I learnt a lot by observing the others,’Doriane Bodart told me later. ‘Their techniques are not really opposed to mine, but some gestures, and their use of certain tools, are always interesting to observe. We have a profession that I would describe as solitary and it is always rewarding to witness other artisans at work. Also, the experience of working with limited time brought a certain spontaneity to the work, with sometimes surprising results. We also had to be very attentive and communicate well, so as not to compromise the quality.’

When the camber was finished, the tip plate glued and the frog fitted, the next task was to drill a hole in the stick. This is a delicate task where the slightest error could ruin the bow’s functionality.Doriane Bodart volunteered for the job and, supervised by Stéphane Thomachot, carefully drilled the hole millimetre by millimetre. To make the nipple (the wooden ring at the end of the stick), Niall Flemming brought in a tool he’d designed specifically for this part of the process.

One of the most interesting moments came when we were examining the stick for bumps, and checking the camber. I’ve always done this by holding both ends of the stick with my hands and flexing it slightly, to put the stick under tension.

This was the way that Bernard Ouchard taught my brother in Mirecourt, but now it seems that a more popular method is to attach a wire to the head and frog, and put it under tension as if stretching it slightly. This allows the maker to work on the stick while it’s stretched, and gives a better view of any bumps and irregularities. I noticed during the congress that this was now the method favoured by most bow makers.

A wire is used to put the stick under tension

At this point, the weight of the stick was 47 grams. Some of us expressed concern that the stick would end up too light after shaping it. The final weight was 44 grams, which most of us felt was a good result.

When it came to the finishing of the stick, we found again that everyone had different techniques. Most of us have given up using ‘Micro Mesh’ abrasive pads, instead preferring to sand the stick with 2000-grit sandpaper and then adding a layer of varnish that has been specially formulated for bows. In the end, we finished the bow just ten minutes before the end of the congress.

As Victor Bernard said afterwards: ‘It’s really rewarding for us to spend time like this at the workbench. If the main principles of bow making are the same for all of us, and have remained that way since the days of F.X. Tourte, an event like this shows how each bow maker has their own techniques and their own intellectual logic. And this is very precious for all of us.’

TRANSLATION BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD