Slip-stick vibration driven by friction is important in many applications, and to model it well enough to make reliable predictions requires detailed information about the underlying physical mechanisms of friction. To characterize the frictional behavior of an interface in the stick-slip regime requires measurements that themselves operate in the stick-slip regime. A novel methodology for measurements of this kind is presented, based on the excitation of a stretched string "bowed" with a rod that is coated with the friction material to be investigated. Measurements of the motion of the string allow the friction force and the velocity waveform at the contact point to be determined by inverse calculation. These friction results can be correlated with microscopic analysis of the wear track left in the coated surface. Results are presented using rosin as a friction material. These show that "sticking" involves some temperature-dependent shear flow in the friction material, and that the exact definition of the states of "sticking" and "slipping" is by no means clear-cut. Friction force during slipping shows complex behavior, not well correlated with variations in sliding speed, so that other state variables such as temperature near the interface must play a crucial role. A new constitutive model for rosin friction, based on the repeated formation and healing of unstable shear bands, is suggested.