THOUSAND OAKS : Class Teaches Techniques of Bow Repair

Lucy Peckham wouldn’t have driven from Anchorage, Alaska, to take just any class at Cal Lutheran University.

But then not every university offers a class like the one taught at the Thousand Oaks campus, the only site on the West Coast where master craftsmen share with students the fine art of making and repairing violins.

So Peckham made the drive to Thousand Oaks and spent the past week learning how to make violin bow repairs.

Peckham plays the cello and works at a violin shop in Alaska, so learning how to rehair a bow and the other skills she shaped at the university’s 3-year-old California Summer String Institute should serve her well, Peckham said.

“I like bows,” said Peckham, whose big black dog slept at her feet while she worked in the class with a dozen other students. “I like the look of them; they’re graceful. I like the head and I like the lines, and rehairing them is the most common maintenance.”

Only the bare basics can be learned in one week of classes, said Jon Vanderhorst, a Massachussetts-based bow maker who taught the course this week. Classes run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“The bow is a primitive but fairly clever technology,” Vanderhorst said, describing it as a spring with a movable nut at one end, known as a frog, which provides the tension.

To lock the bow hair into place, a craftsman must carve miniature blocks of wood, smaller than a fingernail, into the precise dimensions needed to wedge the bow hair into a tiny hole, he said.

“We fasten the hair in with cunning craftsmanship, not glue,” Vanderhorst said.

Vanderhorst has been building and repairing bows for 18 years, having learned under master craftsman Arnold Bone, who teaches the advanced class at Cal Lutheran next week.

“I was a student in the ‘70s and I went through the typical ‘I want to work with my hands’ phenomenon of the time and I just never outgrew it,” Vanderhorst said.

Moving beyond the beginner’s stage takes persistence and patience, said Diane Kress of Portland, Ore., as she chiseled paper-thin slices of wood from a tiny wedge.

“Jon’s really picky,” Kress said. “You’ve got to have it fit just right, otherwise you might have a client who’s playing and out pops the hair. That’s pretty embarrassing, so yes, sometimes you get frustrated.”

Four courses are taught at the string institute between June 14 and July 30, said Denise Aiani, CLU director of continuing education. Maury Kingman, a Thousand Oaks retiree and violin maker, is credited with the idea of bringing the institute to Thousand Oaks.

Previously, violin and bow making were taught by internationally recognized masters only at the University of New Hampshire.