Bows
McHugh Violins carries a wide variety of bows for all playing levels and preferences, from Brazilian Pernambuco wood bows, modern Carbon-fiber bows, to entry-level fiberglass bows. We encourage customers to try as many alternatives as possible, within their given budget.
Pernambuco Bows
Clearly, teachers and many professionals tend to lean toward wood bows because that may be all that they and their own teachers were familiar with. The best wood bows have routinely been the Brazilian-made pernambuco wood bows – but these are no longer available under CITES rules. Currently we are restoring nicer old pernambuco wood bows for sale. Soon we’ll have a list of these for your consideration.
Pernambuco, Ipe wood bows
Other bows
Pernambuco wood bows used to be the standard of the industry, but these days tend to only dominate the $600 –plus range. This wood is from Northeast Brazil and has an uncanny ability to be bent under dry heat and maintain the new shape for years if not decades. Ours are older pernambuco bows, carefully refurbished in our workshop. The nickel mounted German examples are now in the $500 range; the silver start around $950.
Ipe wood has been found to be a good substitute for Pernambuco. We’re still monitoring the early ones of this Walnut-family wood. Bows from Brazil are now available in Ipe, and we do have some examples.
” Mexican Pernambuco” bows are being produced in Portugal, and we have some of those available starting at list prices of $785.
It’s all quite confusing. Tell us your needs and we’ll try to give you a couple to audition for a few days, to see what you think!
Fiberglass bows
These are very basic sticks that function well and are so inexpensive that replacement, rather than rehair, is actually cheaper. Ours are the Chinese student brands that sell for around $55 (for violin bows…viola and cello, a little more.)
The Howard Core #1088 fiberglass bows form the basis of this range. Truthfully, our teacher customers find them to be so much better balanced than the well-known American brand…
Carbon graphite bows (Chinese)
Carbon graphite bows are very strong, well balanced, and very versatile. We try to ignore the very cheapest of these because they still suffer from head breakage problems, but the more cleanly made ones from China are extremely useful. We like the woven (tubular weave in the resin) styles at $139 for violin. Middle and high school students often prefer them to pernambuco bows. Viola, cello and bass examples are available for proportionally more.
