Double Bass cost of replacing screw with added weight

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BostonPop01

Jan 1, 2009
61
22
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#1
Hi everyone,
I have an older Pfretzschner shop german bow (I believe from the 70s) that I used in my student days. It draws a rich sound from any bass I use it on, but there came a point where I realised how exhausted I was getting because it didn't react quickly enough, especially in repertoire with lots of off-the-string strokes+string changes.

Long story short, I ended up replacing it with great bow from a contemporary maker that reacts better than any bow I've ever played. I brought the Pfretzschner to a colleague who was looking to buy a bow and we messed around with lead tape, putting a pretty significant amount (something like 16-18 grams) onto the screw and a bit on the leather around the balance point. It totally changed the bow's balance: spiccato became much easier and it loved staying in the string for the money notes. A different colleague even offered to buy it as is after playing a Bruckner program on it.

It has a pretty flimsy (and very light) plastic screw that pushes the balance out towards the tip, which is probably why I was getting exhausted. I wanted to look into options to either make the bow work better for me or to make it easier to sell. Violinists apparently mess around with different screws, windings, etc. quite often, and I was wondering how much it would cost me to do the same. The sound was always special with this bow, but I think if the balance matched that, then I could "save" the bow and make it more marketable if I were to sell it. So the question is: how much would it cost to have the screw replaced with something heavier and what sort of process would that involve with the archetier? Thanks in advance!
 
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#4
You can replace the screw, but the thread pitch might differ from the one that is currently installed, causing a problem with the frog's eyelet (the part that causes the frog to move). Screws usually come with a matching eyelet, and worst case you might need to plug the frog's eyelet hole and tap a new one.

Here’s a couple of sources for screws (make sure the button is included):
Bass Bow Parts
Howard Core Company
 
#5
I believe that you should be able to have the plastic knob replaced with a metal one (or a wood and metal one, Perhaps some shell for flash, or even that one modified to have metal rings, but I'm not sure that's worth doing if starting with plastic) on the screw you have. That would depend upon the skill-set of the person doing the work. Otherwise, a new eyelet with matching screw, which don't seem to be terribly expensive, though for some reason most of the ones I can find in a quick search appear to be French, or entirely without a knob/button. The latter implying to me (as a non-archetier) that many archetiers perhaps make their own signature button/knob, or transfer the old one to a new screw in repairs - so for the right archetier it should not be a big deal to replace your plastic with wood/metal/shell etc. if your screw/eyelet are in good shape. If the eyelet is worn, that might make this a good time to replace the whole set, unless the screw is a "standard" pitch/size (which I gather is highly variable with individual bows, depending on age and maker.)
 
#6
Are you sure about the 16 grams? That's huge. The lead tape I have is about 1gram per inch. My experience with the stuff is it's awful easy to psych yourself into thinking things are getting better as you pile it on only to discover a day or two later when you try it with fresh fingers that you hate it and tear it all off.

In terms of what can be done (roughly in order of cost and reversability):

-- If the mortise (square hole) in the frog where the plug holding the hair is inserted is deep enough, you could stuff some lead in there at your next rehair.

-- Use your lead tape on the stick, covered over by a leather grip. It's glued on but is removable and the stick cleaned up if you change your mind.

-- You could move from a plastic to an ebony adjuster. Any bow maker could turn you one. Adding a silver collar would increase the weight.

-- You could put a silver winding on like most French bows have. But if it's an octagonal stick, the wire tends to nick the corners and it would show if you later decided to remove it. Any scars though could be hidden under a leather grip.

-- You could go for a heavier screw for the adjuster. Have no idea what's in your bow but most stock adjusters nowadays are 4mm diameter. 4.5mm is available and significantly heavier, but you'd not only need a new eyelet (with possible bushing) but also need to enlarge the shaft to accomodate it and possibly even widen the mortise the eyelet travels in. Major surgery.

All of that together would gain you maybe 8 or 10 grams. And anything you do to it is not only going to affect the weight and balance but also the damping (the sound and tactile feedback) .

My personal feeling is: you already have a new bow you're happy with. Pfretzschner is a name that adds a lot of value to a bow and it's probably best not to do stuff to it that might mess with that value. Why not just put it up for sale and see if there's anyone out there who will love it just the way it is?
 
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#7
bengreen said:
Are you sure about the 16 grams? That's huge. The lead tape I have is about 1gram per inch. My experience with the stuff is it's awful easy to psych yourself into thinking things are getting better as you pile it on only to discover a day or two later when you try it with fresh fingers that you hate it and tear it all off.

In terms of what can be done (roughly in order of cost and reversability):

-- If the mortise (square hole) in the frog where the plug holding the hair is inserted is deep enough, you could stuff some lead in there at your next rehair.

-- Use your lead tape on the stick, covered over by a leather grip. It's glued on but is removable and the stick cleaned up if you change your mind.

-- You could move from a plastic to an ebony adjuster. Any bow maker could turn you one. Adding a silver collar would increase the weight.

-- You could put a silver winding on like most French bows have. But if it's an octagonal stick, the wire tends to nick the corners and it would show if you later decided to remove it. Any scars though could be hidden under a leather grip.

-- You could go for a heavier screw for the adjuster. Have no idea what's in your bow but most stock adjusters nowadays are 4mm diameter. 4.5mm is available and significantly heavier, but you'd not only need a new eyelet (with possible bushing) but also need to enlarge the shaft to accomodate it and possibly even widen the mortise the eyelet travels in. Major surgery.

All of that together would gain you maybe 8 or 10 grams. And anything you do to it is not only going to affect the weight and balance but also the damping (the sound and tactile feedback) .

My personal feeling is: you already have a new bow you're happy with. Pfretzschner is a name that adds a lot of value to a bow and it's probably best not to do stuff to it that might mess with that value. Why not just put it up for sale and see if there's anyone out there who will love it just the way it is?
Click to expand...
This. If you have a bow you love, sell the one you don't love. Don't try to turn it into something it's not
 
#8
Thanks for the informative posts, everyone! I have the hidden hope that I can fix the bow for myself and have a second bow that works well. That being said, most people who try the bow without the lead tape can tell pretty quickly that it's tip heavy. However when I unscientifically balanced it, it suddenly turned into something they were interested in. I wanted to see if there was a relatively cheap option to balance things out a bit to make it an easy sell, if it were to come to that. I have a feeling the plastic adjuster is far too light for the stick.

Agreed that 16grams is probably too much, but we wanted to see how extreme we could make it to see if that would make a significant difference in balance and feel. The feeling that it improved greatly was noticed over several days by most of my colleagues. They also asked if the bow got HBO since it had so much metal on it ;)

Out of curiosity, approximately how much would options 1-3 cost?

Thanks for your help! It's great to have as much info as possible before making a decision!
 
#9
As its a German bow, I'd have though an all-metal button would give you all the weight you need, but I have to say I'm surprised a Pfretszchner bow would need modifying in that way. In the UK you could probably get something like that made for £40-50
 
#10
Any competent machinist can measure the screw threads and make you up a whole new screw assembly, so your old one is unmodified. You probably just start with a length of threaded rod of the correct thread size, and turn off the threads for the unthreaded portion, but I expect individual screw assemblies have variations of design.

If it were me, I would make the screw part, then make the "button" part a multi-piece assembly so you can stack cylinders of metal, wood, or plastic to get the amount of mass you want at the position you want. Think of the old style hammer handles that are made up of a bunch of leather rings stacked.
 
#11
One option that hasn't been mentioned yet is having your bow re-haired short. This means that it wouldn't take many turns at all to get the hair taut enough for playing. Re-hairing short tends to improve a bow's balance, so maybe doing this along with having your bow person add some lead weight wrap might help (or, as other have mentioned, get the silver wire wrap.. a good bow luthier will be able to determine just what to do). I have a rather tip-heavy French bow I had re-haired short, so that now, all that's taped to the frog is one nickel, rather than the 3 that there used to be. It's still tip heavy, but much, much less, and the balance is such that you don't really notice the tip heaviness. Anyway, just a thought.
 
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