Dear Mimmo, Your last e-mail makes considerable sense to me. I've been experimenting with a gut top course on the mandolino (g'' with a .4mm polished gut string). These strings generally last very briefly, a day or two for some... a few hours for others.
Your notion that polishing the string smooth might compromise its integrity by abraiding the fibers of the gut makes perfect sense. Please keep us informed as to your findings. Brief though they live, a gut chanterelle sounds wonderful. Thanks, Eric On Sunday, May 23, 2004, at 03:12 PM, Mimmo wrote: > Hi Richard, > I am still astonished: my convintion was that more than 280 Hz x mt of > breagking index was not possible to do. > Things were so, instead. > I have checked accurately the lute top string manufacturing ( that > employ 2 > guts...) and the chemical treatment (Alun, alkali etc..). So I have > seen > than on my lute of 63.5 cms of vibrating string lenght they broken > instantly > at c, a fourth higher the g! Sometime to c#. > The goal of the question concerne the surface of the top gut strings. > my > idea is that we are in wrong: the well polished surface on such thin > strings > is a mistake, I think: they last very poor than a string only 'half- > rectified'. In other world with a no perfect smooth surface but > sufficient > to make it true. It is incredible to verify how their sound is better > than > of a string of the same gauge but make perfectly smooth! Why this > hapened? I > have no answer. perhaps the broken superficial microfibers do not work > and > make like a dampers in the sound...... > This is the experience that I have make recently: I think that need to > stop > the micrometer -era and switch to new ideas. > I am developing new solutions that can make true (not false gut > strings) but > with a very low polished guts. > Mimmo > > >
