Roger E. Blumberg wrote: > >when you say iron do you mean iron? Is it an alloy mix of some kind? Sounds >like it would be brittle, and corrosive. Are they hard on the fingers, hard >on the frets and fretboard, more so that modern steel strings? > > > I mean iron, of instrument wire quality. Iron strings were made for harpsichords and sold by the Early Music Centre until the mid-1990s. I have some remaining coils of iron (technically it would be considered steel, but a very pure carbon steel without the usual alloying chromium or other traces, and the structure is different - I can't remember by metallurgy despite a background in steel, but closer to austenitic than martensitic or something - not crystalline, more like wrought iron). It has a softer feel yet more volume. Brass wire is even nicer. It's a lovely wire for trebles, but sadly only usable at low tensions, and therefore on short scales.
>Sounds purdy. I have seen, and love, that red. I wouldn't have guessed a >metal rose. > > > The metal rose is an essential part of the sound. It has been lost on many surviving guittars. Mine is complete and original. The sound it produces is a bit like a resonator, adding sustained vibration and connecting across the soundhole with an active element. If it gets loose, it buzzes like mad. I have to push a section down to seat it firmly sometimes and stop the vibration. The metal rose, like the Preston tuner, is part of the unique design of the English guittar. Plenty of citterns have no rose, or a wooden pattern, but only the English guittar has a cast brass rose mounted in an ivory or bone rim - as far as I know. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
