Dear Howard, Martin et al
It now turns out that I misunderstood the statement of the
person
on the French list. Neither of us are Francophone, so perhaps that is
why.
This person said "Je croyais qu'on ne pouvait pas utiliser du boyau
avec une longueur de 114 cm" . I understood in the context of the
discussion that she meant they had to be shorter than 114 cm (which
of course would be absurd). In fact, she has rexeplained that she
thought they had to be much longer than 114 cm.
Roughly translated, she now says "As on an Archlute in G, I have been
advised that it is not a good idea to use a non-wound gut or nylgut
string below a string length of 130 cm (the resulting diameter would
be too thick). If this is the case what gut string could I possibly
use if the diapason is only 115 cms."
I suppose if this is a real problem (I have no idea if it is) gimped
or loaded or loose wound strings might be a possibilty.
Do you have any suggestions.
Regards
Anthony
>
Le 9 févr. 07 à 00:15, Howard Posner a écrit :
> Anthony Hind wrote:
>
>> The person I quoted realised they had made a mistake, but my question
>> coming from that was, does length play any role in the breaking
>> point
>> of a string, or is it simply tension, thickness and the material
>> it is
>> made from?
>>
>> Again the answer is probably obvious and a basic physics textbook
>> answer is no doubt to hand. Unfortunately, I don't have access to
>> one.
>>
>> I am happy there are so many people replying that are using gut
>> strings. I certainly hope to be able to use gut on a future Baroque
>> lute.
>> My fear however, is that indeed the top strings become even more
>> fragile on a Baroque lute than on my 60 cms Renaissance lute.
>
> I don't think length per se makes a string more fragile, at least not
> at the lengths we're talking about here. I've still got the original
> 167cm extension strings on my theorbo; they sound fine after 15 years.
> The instrument doesn't get heavy use, and I note in passing that
> I've
> never seen a suspension bridge held up by gut cables.
>
> But all other things being equal, a longer string is going to be
> thinner. The strings of an A third course at 70 cm will tend to be
> about 85% the diameter of third-course strings at the same pitch on a
> 60 cm lute. This will tend to make them more fragile.
>
>
>
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