5th Octave G Gut string breaking in 3 weeks

[patrice davidson]

I recently replaced the above mentioned string (5th Oct Gut G) with one from Bow Brand. It unfortunately snapped near the pin after three weeks. I noticed they changed their shipping materials to be more sustainable which I am all for but wonder if the new packaging isn’t as effective. Instead of the little plastic zip bag the string was in a kind of cardboard sleeve. I was just wondering if anyone may have had a similar experience. Happy to hear any thoughts, thanks.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by patrice davidson.

[charles-nix]

I would think it more likely that you got a defective string. Zip bags are not an air tight seal at all, and a string would have to sit a long time in the damp to be that weak. I can’t imagine any dealer having damp storage, especially at this time of year.

[balfour-knight]

My fifth octave only has A B C D & E in gut, and does not contain a G. What kind of harp do you have, Patrice?

[Gregg Bailey]

I was wondering the same thing, Balfour, as I’ve never come across a harp model that has gut strings lower than 5A (except your homemade childhood harp!).

-Gregg

[Gregg Bailey]

I have wondered, however, how it would be to put a 5A string in place of the 5G wire on pedal-tension harps like my Prelude, in part so that the G, A, and B in that octave would all look the same. Does Bow Brand even make pedal-tension gut for notes lower than 5A? Maybe a heavy-gauge 5A could work for 5G.?

-Gregg

[charles-nix]

I hadn’t caught the oddity of a 5G gut.

However, I just had a Howard Bryan lever harp come through the shop, and it was gut for both 5G and 5F, then changed to wires. I can’t remember the exact stringing, but it seems like it was concert gauge from about 3rd octave up, transitioning to lever gauge lower down.

Very nice harp, one owner, rarely played, neck is laminated with carbon fiber, very well built. Apparently they made a short run of them, and the owner was from Charlottesville, and her husband bought her one.

I don’t think she will fix it (needs complete stringing and regulation), as she was only fixing it to get a better price in a sale. I expect it could be bought as is. If I needed another harp, I would buy it….. But I digress..

@Gregg, I doubt the gauge would be enough heavier to work well. Even the standard gauge seems to drop off tension at 5A and 5B. The largest strings I know of are 2.50 mm gauge. I think normal is either 2.25 or 2.40 on that note–I’m iced in, and don’t have my charts at home.

[balfour-knight]

Charles, I looked at the “standard” gauges for 5th-octave A and found that Camac, Premier, and Bow Brand are all 2.29mm in gut for that note. “Heavy Gauge” is 2.40mm. You were remembering well even without your charts.
Everyone stay safe in all this winter weather!
Harp Hugs from Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Gregg, as I mentioned above, Bow Brand’s “Heavy Gauge” 5th-octave A is 2.40mm. That seems to me to be enough larger than the regular 2.29mm for that A to indeed make a tolerable G, the note below. You are correct, my dad put the same size (gauge) string on my lowest string, 5th-octave G, that was used for the 5th-octave A. I bet he would have loved that Heavy Gauge A to use as a G! The G on that little 29-string harp he made was very nice, as I remember. We did not want just a single wire string at the bottom of that little harp. The entire range of that harp, G to G, was strung in natural pedal gut back then, in the early 1960’s. I think that my dad would have tried Nylgut if it had been around then, because I do remember him talking about the high cost of gut!

I checked on Aquila’s website, and they offer Nylgut up to 2.40mm thick. It comes 180cm long, equal to about 70.86″ long. This is very generous, as I just measured it for 5G and it is way longer than it would need to be even for that note! I have no experience with using Nylgut that low on my harp, but it would be very economical to buy and give it a try.

Best to all of you,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Charles, it is interesting that Camac made provision on my Atlantide Prestige for the 5th octave A and B to be wire, if the harpist wanted it that way. There are the usual dots on the soundboard for those two additional notes in wire.

Gregg, if you went up those two more notes in wire, you would get your wish for what it would look like! Everything would be “uniform” until it changed over to gut on 5-C, a Red string. It does make me think that the stringing would indeed look better if 5th octave G, A, & B were either all gut, or all wire.

I did think about “looks” when I changed over to the new Nylgut in my 2nd, 1st, and zero octaves. Since the color of the naturals in Nylgut is like “heavy whipping cream,” it does stand out more and would look strange if it ended during a set of 2 or 3 natural strings, compared to either real gut or nylon. It should end where a red C or a black F would help “disguise it,” ha, ha! Incidentally, the Nylgut reds and blacks look just like the other real gut strings in those colors. So far, after about a month now, my Nylguts are doing and sounding great! But that is another thread, ha, ha!

Harp Hugs everyone!
Balfour

[Author]

Posts