Make violin bows with nylon yarn and low-quality horsetail hair, and then install them on the violin and pull them. You will find that they have very little pronunciation and noisy sound. However, the sound of a bow made of high-quality horsetail hair is very sweet. It can be seen that the quality of horsetail hair plays a vital role in whether the violin can make a beautiful sound.
Why is the sound of a bow made of nylon wire and poor quality horsetail unpleasant? The key is that there are no hairy scales on the nylon wire, and the hairy scales of the inferior horsetail hair are also defective. The hair scales on the horsetail hair play an important role.
Under the microscope, the horsetail hair is hollow, and the hair scales are attached to the horsetail hair irregularly.
There are several grades of horsetail hair, general, selected and specially selected. The diameter of general horsetail hair is 14 to 20 threads. The specially selected horsetail hair is also called male horsetail hair. Its diameter is about 17 threads or more, which is thicker than ordinary horsetail hair. Moreover, uniform thickness, consistent length, the pulling force is large and the hand feels good.
Essentially, specially selected horsetail hair, also known as male horsetail hair, is used to make bowstrings. Its hairy scales are sharper and can hold the strings. Therefore, it can make the violin sound louder, the sound is more pure and sweet, and the lifespan is longer. Longer than many selected horsetail hairs. Well received by many violinists.
How to distinguish the quality of horsetail hair used for violin bows?
How do some processors make shoddy products? The color of poor quality horsetail hair is usually dark gray. Some manufacturers use chemical agents to bleach them into white and sell them as high-quality horse tail hairs.
Inexperienced buyers can easily be fooled if they are not carefully identified.
Moreover, in the washing and bleaching process of inferior horsetail hair, not only the potion corrodes and damages the scales on the surface of horsetail hair, the internal quality of horsetail hair itself is greatly damaged.
And the pure natural horsetail hair that has undergone a simple cleaning process has sharp and complete hair scales, and its elasticity and toughness will not be destroyed. When used on a violin bowstring, its sound performance is incomparable to inferior horsetail hair.
How to distinguish the authenticity of violin bow hair?
And the pure natural horsetail hair that has undergone a simple cleaning process has sharp and complete hair scales, and its elasticity and toughness will not be destroyed. When used on a violin bowstring, its sound performance is incomparable to inferior horsetail hair.
Distinguish from the smell:
Just pull off a bow hair and burn it with a lighter. The smell of burning horsetail hair is the same as that of human hair. After rubbing the burning black root tips with your hands, it will immediately turn into powder; and The smell of nylon filaments after burning is plastic, and the root tips after burning form a hard black mass.
Method of dyeing:
Tear off a bow hair, smear it with black hair dye, and then wash it off after 30 minutes. If this bow hair is dyed black, it means it is real horsetail hair, otherwise it is not.
How to identify whether white horsetail hair is of natural color?
First of all, real horsetail hair can be placed in hot saltwater without changing its color. This is unbleached primary horsetail hair. Bleached horsetail hair will become transparent after seeing hot water. This is also a way to distinguish bleached horsetail hair from natural-colored horsetail hair.
