I'm often asked about the funny looking brown tube I keep on stage with me. Sometimes I tell people that if I manage a really good solo, fireworks shoot out, and sometimes I tell them that I have a deathly fear of cats, so it's meant to distract them long enough for me to escape should they appear.... Actually it's a bow stand, since I've stopped using a "quiver" to hold my bow. I just think the bass sounds and feels a little better without it. Mine is modelled loosely on one that Ray Brown designed and used in the 50's and 60's. I asked a friend of mine who knew Ray very well, and he sent me the following instructions:

<Basically the design is like that of an umbrella stand. Here's what you need to make one: Get a piece of 3" diameter PVC tubing-that's the pipe they use in the U.S. for waste drain from the sink and toilet etc. (It's plastic). (It also comes 4" dia. but that is probably too big for the bass bow). Probably a piece about 12"-16" in length should do it. Now you need to mount it to a square piece of wood wide enough so it won't tip over. A 10" or 12" square, like a piece of 2"x12" dimension wood should work good. Now you need an end plug that glues on (special Glue, made for PVC pipe) the bottom end of the pipe. Drill a hole in the middle of this end cap-say 1/4" diameter, or if you are on the metric system over there-you figure out the close equivalent. Drill the same size hole in the middle of the wood. Counter sink the end at the bolt head or nut so it will sit flat on the floor and not wobble. Now you can through bolt and nut the two together and disassembly to make it easy to carry around. Now put a piece of foam rubber in the bottom of the pipe to protect the bow tip. The PVC pipe is white -so you may want to glue on some cloth or something to dress it up-so it doesn't look like something that's supposed to be in the bathroom, HAHA. Paint does not stick to PVC unless you scuff it up pretty good with some sandpaper- say around 220 or 320 grit. So there you have it!>

The improvement I made to the original design is to use one of the screw on endcaps to attach the tube to the base. Glue the endcap in, and then attach the screw on part to the base. This way the tube just unscrews from the base, and voila, it's portable. I then covered the whole thing with cloth (matching my bass bib) inside and out, and stuck a big piece of foam in the bottom, to protect the tip. The whole thing fits in a little bag that I carry all my little accessories to the gig in. I've been very happy with it.

Here are a couple of pictures of mine: