US358315A - Violin-bow - Google Patents

Description

(N0 Model.)

A. W. WHITE.

VIOLIN BOW. No. 358,315. Patented Feb. 22', 1887.

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WITNESS-L5 INVENT &' @APQW 3}: iz L UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ASA IV. WHITE, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

VIOLIN-BOW.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 358,315, dated February 22, 1887.

Application filed December 2'7, 1886. Serial No. 222,594.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ASA IV. 'WHITE, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, a citizen of the United States, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Violin-Bows, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming a part of this specification, in explaining its nature.

It is well known that the great improved violin-bow introduced about a century ago, and known as the Tourte bow, is still the standard of excellence; but it has defects. It is made of one piece of wood, and is originally straight, and has its hollow-backed curvature made by heating and bending by one of the usual bent-wood processes. It is still somewhat flexible laterally, particularly when the touch is near the head, and this flexibility at times interferes with the certainty, uniformity, and continuity of the tones. the weight of the bow, to obtain g'reaterlateral stiffness, would introduce a new trouble for the player.

My invention has for its object to cure this defect of the bow without increase of weight.

It consists in making a blank forthe bow of two or more pieces glued together vertically and longitudinally, and then cutting this blank to the ultimate shape of the bow.

In preparing the wood for this how, I do not take planks or joists, but logs. \Vhen the bow is of two pieces only, I out these logs endwise on lines which radiate from the center to the circumference of the log, so as to make strips which are of wedgeshaped or nearly wedgeshaped cross-section, and'then unite two of these strips, which should be taken from different parts of the log not adjacent in their natural position, or if adjacent naturally, then with their grains reversed. These are first finished to true surfaces and then glued and clamped; but I prefer to use more than two pieces. In such case a log is wholly or partly divided into thin planks,-and another or part of the same log is divided by the radial cuts, before described, and one of thethin planks is faced on each side by a strip of wedge-shaped cross-section and all glued and clamped together.

An increase of- (No model.)

Of course a greater number of pieces than three may be used; but a three-piece b0 w seems to answer every purpose and embody all the advantages that a four or five piece bow would do, although a bowmade on this plan of more than three pieces would embody the invention. After the composite blank is fixed and set I saw or cut it into proper shape, as the Tourte bow is bent into, and finish it as if it were all of one natural piece.

The accompanying drawings invention.

Figure 1 is a side elevation of a bow with its head a, its frog 1), and its horse-hair c, and its arc rod A. Fig. 2 is a similar elevation of the arc rod A and head a of the bow. Fig. 3 is a. plan of the parts of a bow shown in elevation in Fig. 2, but made in my improved plan of three pieces, (I e f. Fig. 4 is a side elevation of the arc rod and head of a ,Tourte bow before it is bent to the shape of Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is a perspective of part of a blank for a three-piece bow of my improved sort. Fig. 6 is a perspective of part of a blank for a two-piece bow. In these the curvature is represented as already sawed. Figs. 7, 8, and 9 show-different ways of cutting a log into sections for use in this manufacture.

' The plankwise cuts are represented at h. The pieces cut on lines radiating from the center are marked 9.

The workman will of course work his wood to as great advantage as he can. The heraldic, ordinary the gyron, well describes the section of the wood, that. being a wedge which terminates in the center of a field, and the fig- 1'llustrate the ure of cutting would be described properly as from the heart of the log, united together side the wood of its several pieces lying naturally, IO by side lengthwise along thin adjacent sides, made of two or more pieces of wood of gyronsubstantially as described. formed cross-section united lengthwise side by 3. The composite blank for a violin-bow, side, substantially as and for the purpose de- 5 composed of two longitudinal pieces of wood scribed.

of gyron-formed cross-section,which pieces are ASA. W. WHITE. united to each other along two adjacent sides, Witnesses: substantially as described. F. F. RAYMOND, 2d,

4-. The shaped vio1in-bow with its grain of J M. DOLAN.

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