Double-strung harp saga

[mae-mcallister]

OK, I know I promised pictures but still no word from Tim (he’s a bit slow with technology matters…) As soon as a have them I’ll put them up.

Biagio – levers are all-important to me, regardless of harp size!! Firstly, I play folk music… i.e with other people, where the key often changes mid-set and it’s not like I can just stop and retune in the middle of the set in a noisy pub; secondly, practice includes flipping levers and practicing in the right key on the right strings; and thirdly, as a synthesthete I can NEVER condone flippant transposition:) I also think that levers are more of a thing over here – most harps you can buy off a full set of levers as standard, whereas in the states its normal to have options of just a few. Lucky it’s me doing the mounting (one of the reasons I ordered a kit…)

Are you sure about the stripping thing?????? What would superglue do to the sound? Does it shorten the life of the string? Have you tried this?? This might be the avenue I go down, I can get Ravenna strings off Morley of about the right gauges…!

Your travel double sounds cute. Offset ranges was something I considered…For the record, the harp I’m building is 29″ high, perfect for travel:)

Tell me about it with the whole secret string thing! Thank god for Morley, they sent me their gauge chart for all of the standard gut gauges (i.e. lever gut, pedal light…) I think it’s silly that the stringing on lots of harps is a secret, it not like you can’t just find most of it out with a string and a ruler and a micrometer. How much does a stringing machine go for these days anyway? I could totally set up a little UK business. Nylon wound strings rock.

Allison – For the record, my stringing scale will not be a secret! I will be very happy to share exactly what range I go for, what strings I used and where I got them from so that anyone else wishing to get one of these and drop the range will know exactly what to get and how to get it.

Tacye – yes, I’ve been thinking about guitar strings too. I dismissed them a) because of the colours thing but mostly b) because of the strings having to be an exact length, but now that I know a way of stripping them…

HMMMMMMMM. This is all super-helpful, you’ve all given me a lot to think about:)

[Biagio]

Yup, it’s a great topic for discussion, and we’ve really gotten into some nitty gritty. A number of new issues have been raised that are quite interesting. Here are a couple of thoughts/comments for what they’re worth (full disclosure: I’ll bet there are plenty who would disagree).

-On CVA glue and string surgery: No it will not hurt nylon. In fact, if you look at the ends of wound nylon strings you will observe CVA on the original knot. Acetone, which is a solvent, won’t hurt it either. The tricky parts are 1) getting the length right and 2) dealing with the winding’s memory (strings try to go back to where they were which in this case is a spiral snarl). For 1) ideally you don’t want the wrap creeping up over the tuning peg but it often will so some extra length of coating is a good idea. For 2) stretching the core between two clamps is a red hot idea. I only do this in an emergency though or when experimenting, it’s a right pain. No, it will not dull the tone – ideally it is only an inch or so at the bridge pin.

-On full levers: I guess it depends on whether you play in sessions a lot and with what kind of harp. Many wire strung players do not use sharping devices at all but usually they are in playing C G D or F so they’ll tune to one of those keys (usually G) and work around the others. Someone who plays a lot of classical music on nylon/gut would probably want a full set. Now we’re getting into an expensive harp! Consider a kit or low end double 23: my view is “Why spend about $1,000 US up front on levers alone for a kit or low end instrument that costs half that in terms of the other materials? Get the minimum and add more later yourself: it’s not hard.” There are some pretty obvious objections to that view!

On colored strings: I buy nylon in bulk and dye my own. Rit(r) Navy blue for Fs and Rit commercial Scarlet for Cs. Rit retail red formula will not work as they changed the formula. Metal, gut and FC can be “painted” with Dykem pattern makers layout fluid or an oil-based Sharpie pen.

On winding machines: They are not cheap to buy and tricky to build so way out of my league! Some adventurous folks have made them though. If anyone is interested in getting that deeply into harp design and construction a good place to start would be the Yahoo Harpmakers forum. A couple of folks their have made their own.

On making an “inexpensive” double strung: There are three ways to go here. The easiest is to buy an existing kit – Dwight Blevins makes several models as well as Gary Stone. Another is to modify a single strung kit; a number of people have done that to Music Maker’s Limerick and (now discontinued) Shepherd model or design your own. In the last two cases there will be some study involved. Start with Jerry Brown’s “Folk Harp Design and Construction” (Music Makers) which is for singles but gives you the basics. The third is to get a harp maker to design one for you and possibly help you build it. That’s not so far out as one might think – there are many small but excellent operations who would be interested.

One last note: Much beyond 3 1/2 octaves you will have to consider through pegs rather than zither and design gets a lot more complicated not to mention a top heavy harp.

Biagio

[Biagio]

I forgot about the “secret string thing”…..I’ve never quite understood that attitude from a practical stand point: anyone with a good micrometer and tape and access to a model can get the specs. For that matter, anyone studying enough pictures and descriptions can get pretty close. Consider that the strings are the heart and the sound board the soul – that’s where the effort really is. You can’t take apart it to study the board but the strings are out there. But here are some reasons that do make sense to me:

-Whether a hobbiest such as myself or a professional like Ray Mooers (Dusty Strings) all of us have worked long and hard to make something beautiful. There is a natural resentment to the thought of someone coming along and just duplicating that effort and then marketing it. That does happen, although usually they duplicators don’t last very long since they don’t otherwise know what they’re doing.

-If we published the exact string band specifications – Tension, %Tensile strength, T/L ratio, Impedance, Cross sectional board tension – most players’ eyes would roll. Most frankly are even afraid of the maths, including two professionals I know and greatly admire. They’re just not interested and possibly it would even detract from sales. “The proof is in the tone and feel” as it were.

-There are some generally accepted axioms about those parameters but there are some darn fine harps that violate them for good reasons – why confuse the issue?

Personally I wish makers would lighten up a little on this. I know players who will only order strings from the harp maker even though they KNOW he gets his strings from a professional string maker. I also know of players who are terrified of changing from nylon to gut or vice versa, which makes absolutely no sense. But there we are.

Just my two and a half cents.

Biagio

[Biagio]

Allison (and anyone else considering a double from scratch or modification), here is my basic design from a 2×26, range C below middle C to up to g. It’s where I start before tweaking for size, desired tone, and so on.

Read this across the columns as vibrating length (board to bridge pin), core gauge (inches), core gauge mm for FC where it can be substituted, core material, # bedding fibers, wrap type and gauge. If you use these exact specs you will end up with a harp about 38″ tall, 24″ wide and about 20 lbs. depending on the wood, etc. The SbB width is up to you: I prefer 5″ at the treble and 10-12″ at the bass.

If you want to play around with this, even if only for fun and interest…download Jerry’s string analysis worksheet and order his book on folk harp design. The latter comes with a handy string layout worksheet (“concert” spacing). You will have to make a few judgement calls for a double: how thick you make the neck, where to place tuning pins, whether you like the size or want to make it taller or shorter (with corresponding changes to vibrating length and composition).

This will have total tension of exactly 1,000 lbs. so do some thinking about the SB, where you place the ribs, reinforcing the neck, etc. Jerry’s book will cover most of that.

Have fun!

4 0.025 Nylon
4 1/2 0.025 Nylon
5 0.025 Nylon
5 1/2 0.028 Nylon
6 0.028 Nylon
6 1/2 0.028 Nylon
7 0.032 Nylon
8 0.032 Nylon
9 0.032 Nylon
10 0.032 Nylon
11 0.032 Nylon
12 0.036 Nylon
13 0.036 Nylon
14 0.040 Nylon
16 0.040 Nylon
18 0.040 0.91 Nylon
20 0.040 0.91 Nylon
22 0.045 0.95 Nylon
24 0.050 1.01 Nylon
25 0.050 1.01 Nylon
26 0.055 1.08 Nylon
27 1/4 0.036 Nylon Nylon 0.012
28 1/4 0.036 Nylon Nylon 0.015
29 1/4 0.016 Steel 7 Nylon 0.01
30 1/2 0.018 Steel 9 Nylon 0.01
31 0.020 Steel 12 Nylon 0.01

[mae-mcallister]

NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS!

…not pictures, sorry:( I’ve just spoken to Tim and expect to get them at some point very soon. He says that by the end of today the entire thing should be glued up!

The news is: I have (finally) settled on a string design!! It’s the ultimate compromise between range and price (as I have to ship the stuff over here and pay the bloodsuckers their 20%) and the good news for any keen double-stringers out that that I think it would be relatively straightforward to convert a pre-existing stoney double even if you got them to build it in the shop and then did it yourself.

SO, I had thought about it before Biagio mentioned it on this thread, but when I realised how expensive it would be to have both sides strung C-C and it was in my mind from what Biagio said, I have decided to string the LH side from C-C and the RH side from G-G:)

Pros – bigger range (super-pro for a 22 string harp!); cheaper because I only have to sort out one side different (super-pro for UK-residing me); RH side will sound better because the lengths will be longer so the tune side will be nice and clear (super-pro for EVERYONE); I’ve never played a double before so I don’t have to “adapt” from a normal double-strung; Sides are a (tidy) 5th apart so it’s not that much more confusing…

Cons – no cons. Hmmm. Maybe a leeeetle bit less intuitive than a normal double. Oh, and you can’t really tune it up into F tuning because you’ll mess up the tensions (or you can but you have to design it that way). But that’s all I can think of.

Yay!

I want to run the design by y’all (ok, Biagio) before I actually order the stuff, so this is the “speak now or forever hold your silence” bit:

C side:

8 .036 nylon
9 .040 nylon
10 .040 nylon
11 .040 nylon
12 .045 nylon
13 .045 nylon
14 .045 nylon
15 .050 nylon
16 .055 nylon
17 .055 nylon
18 .055 nylon
19 .060 nylon
20 .045 nylon .008 nylon
21 .050 nylon .008 nylon
22 .055 nylon .008 nylon
23 .055 nylon .008 nylon
24 .060 nylon .010 nylon
25 .060 nylon .010 nylon
26 .060 nylon .013 nylon
27 .060 nylon .013 nylon
28 .060 nylon .015 nylon
29 .060 nylon .018 nylon

G side:

4 .025 nylon
5 .025 nylon
6 .028 nylon
7 .028 nylon
8 .028 nylon
9 .032 nylon
10 .032 nylon
11 .032 nylon
12 .036 nylon
13 .036 nylon
14 .036 nylon
15 .040 nylon
16 .040 nylon
17 .045 nylon
18 .045 nylon
19 .045 nylon
20 .050 nylon
21 .050 nylon
22 .055 nylon
23 .055 nylon
24 .060 nylon
25 .060 nylon

For the unbelievers/cynics/nerds among you, here are two graphs:

http://www.harpcolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/rtMedia/users/5139/2014/11/HarpFeel.jpg

http://www.harpcolumn.com/wp-content/uploads/rtMedia/users/5139/2014/11/HarpTension.jpg

One is the feel of string set, the other is the tension (in Newtons. Deal with it:) Each graph shows the the C side, the G side and the values for the original string design a la Gary (GStoney). The overall tension on the harp is equivalent to 409Kg, which is 10Kg less than designed, and if you were wondering, the net tension difference between the two sides is only 1N (that’s about 112g, or 0.25 lbs of force).

So what I think I need to order is the wound strings as listed above, plus a few odd nylon strings to fill in the gaps of the ones I already have, 10 leather washers, a handful of medium and large eyelets, and I also need to think about how to ream out 9 zither pins so that I have enough with large holes.

(Note about that – Stoney End sent me 8 zither pins with large holes, which is enough for the .060 and .055 strings they sent but not for the .050 ones. The clear .050 strings fit through the normal-seized zither pin holes, the coloured ones (i.e the blue F) don’t. Not impressed. But I think they must have reamed them out themselves because I don’t see VT strings selling them, and I need more than 2 any way for my new string design, so I might as well ream them out myself. Thoughts?)

[Biagio]

Kudos Mae, that was a lot of work!! I have only a couple of comments….

A couple of the C-C bass strings will be pretty “fat” but if you’re OK with that, fine. My short little fingers would slip off, with other players it does not seem to be a problem. I think I wrote earlier that I prefer a steel core for that reason, but no big.

Music Makers stocks Z pegs with over-size holes; I go ahead and pay the price because enlarging them myself is a pain. Be sure that the edges are nice and smooth when you get them or make them. I just hate it when a nice wound string gets cut!

I LIKE the idea of a C-C/G-G combination so you’ve inspired me to do one too. My private response to Laurie’s remark was “So?” But she’s my teacher and is used to Biagio-The-Experimenter:-)

Thanks and be sure to tell us how you like it when the dust has all settled!

Biagio

[Biagio]

He’s baaaaaaack….

Mae, hate to be a wet blanket, but it occurred to me that the bass C-C might be really slack so I went ahead and ran an analysis. Yup. they’re way down in the teens of %Tensile, I’m afraid they would be very thumpy. Up to you of course but I’d substitute the following if possible:

0.036 Nylon
0.040 Nylon
0.040 Nylon
0.040 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.050 Nylon
0.055 Nylon
0.055 Nylon
0.055 Nylon
0.060 Nylon
0.045 Nylon Nylon 0.008
0.016 Steel 8 Nylon 0.008
0.016 Steel 8 Nylon 0.01
0.016 Steel 8 Nylon 0.01
0.016 Steel 8 Nylon 0.01
0.018 Steel 10 Nylon 0.01
0.018 Steel 12 Nylon 0.013
0.018 Steel 12 Nylon 0.013
0.018 Steel 12 Nylon 0.015
0.018 Steel 12 Nylon 0.02

I order from Vermont Strings and usually run this kind of thing past Joan and Skip Lamere.

Keep on plucking!
Biagio

[Biagio]

And now the G-G side:

0.025 Nylon
0.025 Nylon
0.025 Nylon
0.028 Nylon
0.028 Nylon
0.032 Nylon
0.032 Nylon
0.032 Nylon
0.036 Nylon
0.036 Nylon
0.036 Nylon
0.040 Nylon
0.040 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.045 Nylon
0.050 Nylon
0.050 Nylon
0.055 Nylon
0.055 Nylon
0.040 Nylon Nylon 0.01
0.040 Nylon Nylon 0.013

[mae-mcallister]

Huh, weird. When I run it, they all come out with %Tensile in the mid/high 20s. That’s the % tension/tensile strength of the core, with a correction on the tension for the extra mass added by the wind…will check again.

Music makers is all very well, but I can’t really pay $20 shipping for $9 worth of zither pins. If any one knows any one in the UK who sells them I’d be obliged…

[Biagio]

It’s probably a pretty fine point, I was just playing around with my own design for a “C one side G the other” and swapped out string lengths to compare. In any case we know that with those baked in string lengths, one or t’other is probably as good as it’s going to get. Can’t fight physics:-)

A thought did pop into my cranium this morning though: Gary may not have provided large enough sound board grommets. On the C side you’ll need large sized ones from C at least up to A.

Almost there – this is the fun part, waiting to see how it sounds after all that thought and work. And it’s not even Christmas yet!

Biagio

[mae-mcallister]

Is “grommets” what I call “eyelets”? Those bits of brass tube that go into the soundboard through which the string goes? In which case, it had already crossed my mind, you’ll notice my shopping list includes them:)

I’ll relax once I actually get this stuff ordered…apparently internet banking hasn’t reached America yet and everything must be done by telephone…or carrier pigeon…

[Biagio]

Yup grommets=eyelets in Biagio-speak. Yeah it’s a funny thing, I can’t think of much I just order off the net, it’s almost all by phone or email. Savarez Alliance Strings and sometimes a good deal on eBay that’s about it.

Actually the personal touch pleases me – so many people in the harp world have become friends that way.

Biaigo

[mae-mcallister]

Right, Stoney End say they drill out their own pins, so we’ll just do that, it’s the least faffy option.

Question: nn strings – given the option, is it better to aim for big core/thin wrap or vise versa or equal? Instinct says the thicker the core compared to the wrap (i.e. the higher core/wrap ratio) the better it will sound, but I am literally basing that on nothing but gut feeling. Knowledgeable people?

[Biagio]

I don’t hear much, if any difference, tone-wise. Given a choice I’d probably go with thinner core thicker wrap with the idea that it might be somewhat less likely for the wrap to break at the bridge pin. On some specific harps I’ve use fiber bedding as well -NFN – for the higher density and fine tuning (in lieu of fiber core silver wound)…. but these strings are too short to be worth the cost of either IMO.

Thanks so much for starting this thread! It’s stimulated a lot of ideas for me.

Biagio

[mae-mcallister]

Why why why why why would you have your wind go over the bridge pin?? Surely better to stop the wind after the lever but before the bridge pin?

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