{nell hall}

Made my way back up to Port Townsend for Fiddle Tunes, the annual festival up at Fort Worden.

Learned some new tunes, played some old ones. Made some new friends, played tunes with some old ones.

Danced a lot, played until 3am, slept little.

It’s like Catullus 46:

Iam ver egelidos refert tepores,
iam caeli furor aequinoctialis
iucundis Zephyri silescit aureis.
linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi
Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae:
ad claras Asiae volemus urbes.
iam mens praetrepidans avet vagari,
iam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.
o dulces comitum valete coetus,
longe quos simul a domo profectos
diversae varie viae reportant.

I think I’ll be back next year!

The head of the bow is one of the big ``cruxes’’ for me of the bowmaking process. While other aspects like the camber and graduations more directly affect the feel of the bow when played, the shape of the head really defines the feel of the bow artistically.

In the above, you can see my latest bow head in process. In the first two images, I’ve defined the first of the chamfers used to control the shape of the head. Part of why this is the crux of the process is that these must flow dynamically, gracefully, and be a perfect surface – very hard to do!

In the latter two photos, you can see the finished result. I’m pretty happy with it, though I think there are some things I’ll do differently next time. This head draws pretty strongly on those of Persoit, and I really wanted the start of the arête (at the top of the head) to be quite strong. I would actually like a shorter, more delicate bec in the next one.