Give your bow some love

See below for a guide to the bow service packages we offer to keep your bow in tip-top shape

faq

How often should I rehair my bow?
It depends on the player and how much you play. As a rule of thumb, for an amateur or student, once a year or every six months. For a professional, probably every three months or more often! The more often you re-hair your bow the better it will play for you.
Why is it so expensive?
The true answer is that it is cheap. I'll break it down:
Cost of a standard rehair to the customer = £110
  • VAT = 20% (goes straight to the government): £18.34
  • Materials = £20
  • Hourly cost of labour/workshop and bench space, at an average of 1.5 hours per bow = £60
  • TOTAL COST = £
  • PROFIT FOR THE BUSINESS (To cover rent, overheads, advertising, running costs etc.) = £11.66 

Every bow is different and so takes a different length of time to rehair, as some bows are easy to take apart, some are difficult, some are made badly and need amendments, some are dirty, some are clean, some are well made and a dream to work with and others are just very tricky.

Giving each customer a different price to account for this would just be too difficult (and add to the overall cost as each bow would have to be quoted for individually!) so we do a fixed price and work for a fixed fee on bows, which sometimes means we make a loss on difficult bows. Even on easy bows the hourly rate is way below a music teachers' charge out rate, for example. I really love it when I meet musicians who understand and appreciate the training and skill that goes into working on their bow. It is by far the most skilled thing I think anyone in the workshop does, as there are so many minute variables. That's why so few violin makers also do bow repairs. The skills are very specific and unique.

Anyone who is VAT registered who is offering bow repairs for less than £100 is seriously undervaluing their skills or using it as a loss leader to get customers in the door. Even at £110 we are making a tiny profit. We might as well be donating money to a charity for musicians to be honest, instead of doing this difficult job. But we do it because it is necessary and without it there would be no music!

What do we propose to do about the problem of the market rate being too low?

Until the industry changes and other businesses understand and accept that this service is not sustainable at this level there is not much we can, do but we will continue to talk about the problem.

Meanwhile, if anyone who has had a good re-hair from us and would like to tip us, we would be very grateful.


SERVICE PRICING

basic service - £20
stick clean and polish
silver polish
lubrication of adjuster and underslide
FACE, FROG AND PEARL SLIDE CLEAN AND LUBRICATE (during rehair only)
​
Bow rehair - Fiddlers £100 (£105, £108), silver £110(£112, £118), gold £130(£135, £140)
bow leather replacement - £45(£49)
Bow lapping - from £100 (thread), £125 (silver), £150 (silver Tinsel)
​
Other repairs quoted by assessment