Monday, December 1, 2014

viola bow attachment: proper positioning











Ranee put me in touch with Shea's orchestra director, Mr. Wimer. He sent the bow  position images above and wrote the following on the proper positioning of the bow: 

The palm of the hand can be perpendicular to the stick of the bow. If we are able to get detailed with this; when holding the bow, the forearm should rotate inwards slightly (like turning a door knob) so that the top of the hand is facing top/left, instead of straight up. Notice, the slight turn of the forearm and hand to the left of the player. With that said, if there is a possible way to have some flexibility with the wrist, that is preferred. However, this being a special circumstance, I understand if we can't; there are ways to work with a fixed wrist. 

After receiving this information, I decided that it might be best to try positioning the actual bow holder in different positions so we can try to approximate the proper grab for the bow. I made sure not to "boolean" the bow holder with the gauntlet so I could tweak the positioning. This will also allow others to size the gantlet independently of the bow holder. I may try to put the bow holder on a dovetail or similar attachment as I did for the tensioner on the latest Raptor gauntlet. I went ahead and generated stl(s) of the three versions and then printed these. Having three different versions will allow Shea to experiment and Mr Wimer the opportunity to educate me on which version might work better or where to make design changes. I think between the three of us, we should be able to nail down a finalized design that we can share with other people who may have a similar need.






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