Sean and Dana
I think you must both be correct (in a way). I have not experimented
this, but in my mind I see myself stretching a piece of rubber band
held between two fingers of both hands,.
In between the hands the rubber band will become thinner, but on the
other side of the fingers, there is no lengthening, and therefore it
should remain the same, too thick to go through the bridge hole.
You perhaps need to pass another stiff thin string through the bridge
hole, and use that to pull the string through (so that it is
stretched from tip to toe).
It does seem complicated, so perhaps the string was shorter than the
lute, but not quite as short as his gesture implied.
However, Charles Besnaiou does have a few tricks up his sleeves, such
as making nylgut ropes to replace wire wounds, and attaching them
with one or two of the strands, so as not to have to widen the bridge
hole.
I wouldn't put it past him having made a gadget to help place his
strings; however, as these are not available to the public, as yet,
perhaps we should not worry to much.
The main part of my message was, in fact, about the nylon-titanium
strings; but I have now learnt that these are not commercialized
either, in the narrow gauge which would be best for our use (1c).
However, these gauges apparently do exist. Therefore, perhaps a few
questions to string sellers could get them on the market. At present
they are only widely available as guitar strings.
I wonder whether Titanium-Nylon strings are not a development coming
from tennis (for which they are, in fact, no longer used).
at http://www.stringforum.net/about_strings.php
I read "Titanium Strings: Shortly after the titanium boom in the
racquet market, a flood of "revolutionary" titanium strings entered
the string market. Based on Nylon or multifilament strings, the
titanium is either applied with the coating of the string, protecting
the material from UV radiation and abrasion, or the titanium is
integrated into the filaments to modify the playability of the
string. Since the titanium boom is over, titanium strings are no
longer popular today. The term "titanium" in the name of a string
often refers only to its color. Examples for "real" titanium strings
are Gosen OG-Sheep JC Titan, Tyger Ultra Titanium (coating) and
Isospeed Titanium (fiber)."
If we consider the question of sale's pressure, I suppose tennis
rackets precede guitars, which largely precede lutes.
There does not seem to be a rush to find better synthetic substitutes
for gut and particularly for the lute. We were perhaps lucky in
getting Nylgut quickly, as Mimmo Peruffo happened to play the lute.
Regards
Anthony
Le 23 sept. 07 à 20:48, Sean Smith a écrit :
>
> Thank you, Dana. In other words, to double the length of a cylinder
> while conserving the volume we decrease the diameter by a third? I can
> picture it in my mind but would have severely fumbled the math.
>
> A friend writes off-list of a 4" double bass string. "You have to
> Believe!" he adds.
>
> As for getting it through the bridge hole it should be quite easy:
> Stretch to the appropriate diameter and then cut it in the middle.
> Science really isn't as hard as it looks.
>
> Sean
>
>
> On Sep 23, 2007, at 11:30 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Sep 23, 2007, Sean Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>>
>>> Then I wondered: if you are stretching it to, say, 3 times its
>>> length
>>> then it must be purchased at 3x the diameter (the mass must remain
>>> constant, right?) How does one push that through the bridge hole?
>>
>> Mass must be conserved, but the mass of a cylindrical prism is the
>> product
>> of sectional area and length, so the sectional area will be thirded,
>> and
>> that will reduce the diameter (=2r) by the square root of 3 (~1.7).
>>
>> --
>> Dana Emery
>>
>>
>
>
>
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