How to Make Your Guitar Sound Like a Violin

Not long after I have started playing guitar, I have thought about playing the guitar with a bow, like a violin. I searched on the internet, and I found out that this method actually exists. I built a very rudimentary bow, but since the guitar is flat, only chords on electric sound interesting. In a Youtube video (How to imitate cello and violin on guitar - YouTube) I saw that a pen with rosin can be inserted between the strings to achieve this sound. Later I found about the Picasso guitar bow, but 70 dollars is not very cheap.

Hi, this is my first instructable and I am going to build some kind of bow you can play between the guitar strings, and then I will show you how to make rosin. Sorry for the bad pictures.

Update: I have made some changes to it after I used it for a while.

Materials:

Piece of wood at around 20 cm long.

fishing line

two small screws and nuts around 2 cm long, the smaller diameter the better.

paper clip or wire

glue

resin (for the rosin)

Tools:

saw

small piece of wood that will remain from the bow , 1 cm of plastic pipe, or an elderberry stick. (for the rosin case)

drill

strong cutter

small cutter

knife

vise

pliers

hammer

sandpaper

fire (for the rosin)

a spoon or the lid of a tin can (for the rosin)

lighter (for the rosin)

The shape of your piece of wood is probably far from the desired result. Using a knife and a hammer, shape the wood into a bar around 1 cm wide and less than 1 cm thin (you will cut from it).

With a cutter (preferably a strong one) start shaping the bow. You should avoid chipping big pieces at once (like in the picture 2) because you might chip to much and ruin the project. Once you get closer to the desired shape, use a small cutter for shaping, and chop just small pieces. Try to make it more straight than mine.

Sand the tip. Cut a groove with the saw. The tip shouldn't be sharp.

Sand the wood, than check its thickness by inserting it between guitar strings. The space between the strings should me a lot wider than the thickness of your future bow. Try to make it as thin as possible but thick enough to not break.

I don't know how to call them. They have the same purpose as the guitar nut. Cut two small pieces of wood and sand them down until they are thin enough to fit with the bow between the strings, then glue it just below the tip. After I used it I saw that I needed slots in the nuts, and that I needed another set at the frogs. If you want to put them wait until the end.

Make the hair tension mechanism, called frog. Cut a piece of wood, of the width of the bow, drill a hole of the size of the screws. From the paperclip make a ring with a hook. Yow will need two of these.

A normal bow uses a ribbon of horsehair or nylon. I will use fishing line. Measure the length from one hook to the other, cut few sections of fishing line. Put them together and make knots at the ends. Then make two hooks from the paperclip and tie them at the ends of the fishing line. I will refere to this part as "hair". You could use just one wire but I am sure that the actual horse hair as a lot of fibres for a reason, so I used several wires.

Glue the frogs to the bow. Try to not use crap glue. Put the screw though the hole, the wire ring on the screw and then the nut. In the picture will see only one frog, I realized later that I needed two, but I didn't take a picture. In the second picture you can see how to pace the second set of nuts.

Put the hair on the bow and tighten te screws. Apply rosin on it and start playing. Wait...what rosin?

Take another piece of wood, drive a hole through it, cut one side, and shape it as you wish. You could also use a piece of elderberry branch. Just split it in half, get rig of the spongy middle, and sand it. Or, you could simply cut a piece of plastic pipe in half.

Gather some tree resin from a pine, spruce, or fir. You might find bugs in it, I found a spider. If you are afraid of them, you have been warned.

As you melt the resin, pour it in the case you made, allow it to harden a little bit before pouring another layer. This way you will avoid the rosin dripping the sides of the case. After it hardens, you've got rosin. Is should be hard and brittle when it cools. If it is still soft, you didn't boil it enough (I advise you to not use it because it will be harder to clean from your strings. Some rosin producers just pour it on a cloth.

After you pour the rosin in the case, you will notice that might have an iregular surface. To get it flat, heat it with a lighter (preferably a jet lighter).

In the spoon, (I used the lid of a tin can) melt some resin over the fire. From what I observed, it is better if you heat less at a time, than getting a spoon full of molten rosin, because it will get harder (that is the point of melting it). If it catches fire, it is good, just be careful. The darker it gets, the better. Most companies add some other things in it and each claim that their recipe is better. Some even put gold in them!

Now you can start playing. Don't forget to rosin your bow before playing. Or you can read the 17th step.

Keep a cloth with your bow so you can clean your guitar strings after you play. Also clean the hair of your bow from time to time.

Tension of the hair is very important. It should be tight (don't exagerate still).

Don't press your bow against the string. Let it just barely touch the string. It sounds better.

Learn some basic stuff about violins. I mean beginner tips like how to rosin your bow, or clean your strings. The internet is full.

Detensionate the hair if you don't play with the bow for a long time, because the nylon of the fishing line will elongate, and you will find yourself not having enough screw to tighten it. You remember how annoying is to make a new hair or to move the knots into the righit psition.

This one is obvious, but try power chords.

You can play with the bow without touching the fretboard. This way you can replicate the smooth pass between notes of a violin.

You can hit the strings with the bow. Your chords will sound more closer to piano chords.

If you have nylon strings it won`t sound good (the thick ones with the metallic coil will sound good) Try to move the bow fast on the thin ones. It will sound better.

Keep a screwdriver with your bow (small cheap crap is good) to adjust the tension if you need.

If you are too lazy to make it you can use a pen with rosin, but in my opinion the bow sounds better.