WILL’S BOW part 11. The button.

The button can be made at any time since we can use another one temporarily; so while we are waiting for the varnish to dry we can start work on it. As with the rest of the bow we start with raw materials, a piece of ebony and some silver in a sheet one millimeter thick.

Then two strips of silver are cut out with a jeweler’s saw and bent to form rings with the ends lining up. Each ring is heated in an alchohol lamp until red hot and joined with silver solder.

Then the ring is hammered on a mandrel or tapered rod until it is perfectly round and the desired size.

At this point we get out a little watchmaker’s lathe and clamp it to the workbench. This lathe is the only powered tool in the shop although we use a bandsaw to cut up the pernambuco boards into rough sticks. A small piece of ebony is secured in the lathe and turned round to the size of the rings. Next the ends get reduced until the rings can be hammered on forming a small barrel-like cylinder.

The function of the rings is to prevent the ebony from splitting when the screw is hammered in but it now is part of the bow’s style. In the next post we will carry the button through to completion.