> From: David Kilpatrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 01:40:19 +0100 > To: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: cittern <[email protected]> > Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Pedro Cabrals answer > > 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. thanks for the details. If I find any deposits of such old instrument-wire someday I'll be sure to snag it. >> 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. that's a very interesting and unexpected fine-point (albeit key-point). Thank you. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
