Nylgut Strings by Aquila

[Mark Pfannschmidt]

I have been using the Nylgut NGH strings on my Dusty Strings FH36B (which was designed to be able to use gut strings as an alternative to nylon for some of the strings–but check with Dusty Strings to be sure about your harp). I have used gauges closest to Dusty’s gauges and I love the sound! I have also put them on my Dusty Strings Boulevard Classic 34.

I also love the visibility of the non-colored strings.

I just put in an order for more. The lower gauges (up to 145) come in 120 cm lengths and the higher gauges (150 and above) come in 180 cm lengths. The gauge numbers are in hundredths of millimeters, e. g. 145 is 1.45 mm.

As has been stated, Aquila Corde has designed Nylgut strings to be the same gauge and tension as gut strings. Since they are available in a wide variety of gauges, they can be used as a substitute for lever OR pedal tension gut, provided that you know the proper gauges to order.

Any gauge string can be ordered in black, red, or natural, which is a very light beige and is opaque.

By the way, don’t order other Nylgut strings for other instruments (for example, theorbo). Curtis from Aquila USA told me they are a different material. The NGH are specifically designed for harps.

Mark Pf…

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Mark Pfannschmidt.

[balfour-knight]

Mark, thanks so much for posting here! What you have said confirms what I have found to be true about these wonderful strings. Nylgut NGH is indeed a synthetic gut string, and needs to be brought to the attention of more harpists. These strings are not like the so-called “sugar cane strings” which seem to have certain inherent problems. I have read about the sugar strings having to be gauged larger than the normal gut strings, and they obviously have problems being pulled up to pitch, plus, they stretch a lot and have to have coils removed at the tuning pins because they pile up from stretching! Larger gauge strings mean more stress on the harp, too.

NGH Nylgut can be installed just like gut, and holds pitch in a couple of days. The tone is clear, even better than gut in the high octaves of my pedal harp. It has none of the harshness in the overtones that nylon has. A harpist’s plucking strength is the same for Nylgut that it is for gut, and humidity changes do not bother the tuning stability.

Now, my Nylgut strings have proven themselves, having been on my harp for almost a year!

Try these out–you may LOVE them like I do!

Happy Harping,
Balfour

[Mark Pfannschmidt]

Balfour,

I have found with my Nylgut NGH strings that I have to leave them on for about 24 hours and then reinstall them (that is, I wind up the extra length and leave it on the harp–I call this a “bad hair day”). I end up pulling about 1.25 inches (about 3 cm) through the tuning pin and then rewinding. While I could leave 4-5 wraps around the tuning pin, for some strings I end up getting an additional length by taking up that extra bit. That leaves me with about 3 wraps around the tuning pin. I did have to re-regulate my harp, but I was also initially going from nylon to Nylgut. I have also used Silkgut (another Aquila Corde string brand) and like them just as well, but I prefer the look of the Nylgut NGH for the non-colored strings.

Also, be prepared that it might take a while for your strings to arrive. Curtis cannot stock every gauge in every color–there are 45 different gauges from 34-240 (.34mm – 2.40 mm) and three colors (natural, red, and black). They were designed to be a more stable solution than gut for historic harps, but work perfectly well on modern harps that are designed for lever or pedal tension gut.

You do have to know the gauges that you want, but there have been several postings earlier in this thread about string gauges for various harps and Dusty Strings lists their string gauges in various places. For Dusty gut gauges, look at the order page for their gut strings. The gauges are listed there.

Mark Pf…

[balfour-knight]

Thanks again for posting here, Mark. Since I have only put New Nylgut NGH on the top 16 notes of my pedal harp, I did not have the problem of too many coils on the tuning pins from strings stretching. However, I did have that problem with the lower, thicker Premier gut strings, especially in the 4th and 5th octaves. After a couple of days, I had to unwind them and take about an inch out of the string, then rewind. Like you, I prefer to have about 3 coils around a tuning pin, and certainly not more than 4!

That must mean that NGH is acting just like real gut in the amount it stretches, especially on longer, thicker strings. My Dusty FH36S still has nylon, which I prefer on that particular harp. Every time I restring, the nylons stretch a lot, especially the nylon over nylon in the baritone section of the harp. I have always had to unwind, take out an inch of the string, and rewind after a couple of days of them stretching.

Going from real gut to Nylgut, I did not have to reregulate, but going from the nylon to the Nylgut, I did. I regulate my two harps every year anyway, so no big deal.

What exactly is Silkgut? Is it Nylgut made a little differently?

Have a great day!
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Mark, do you use the new Nylgut NGH strings all the way to the top of your Dusty harps? If you don’t, you certainly could do that. On my FH36S, strung in nylon, I use pedal harp nylon made by D’Addario for the top eleven strings. They are graduated nicely in a separate gauge for each string, of course, and that makes them more even-tensioned and to me, makes for a better tone than having four or five strings per gauge, like lever harps usually have. Most folks do not know that the top of Dusty FH36 harps have pedal harp tension. Counting the top C as no. 1, the first 11 strings have pedal tension. Lower than that, the strings become thinner than pedal strings, so the thicker gauged pedal strings would put too much tension on the harp.

Best wishes,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Update! My New Nylgut NGH strings made it a year on my pedal harp without any breaking except one, the top 0G. They still sound as good as they did a year ago, and maybe even better now that they are fully acclimated on the harp. They hold tune better than any other strings on the harp, which is a delight in those high octaves! Let me know your experiences with them, and you can find detailed gauge selection charts for pedal and lever harps on this thread, if you look back at my posts.

Best wishes,
Balfour

[Mark Pfannschmidt]

SILKGUT
Silkgut is a different string. (I first became aware of them when I bought a Harp-E kit. It is the standard string for the Harp-E.) Silkgut and Nylgut are both made by Aquila Corde. Nylgut has two co-branded versions: one by Bow Brand and the other by Sipario. Silkgut also has more standard translucent white appearance like nylon. I prefer the greater visibility of Nylgut.

NYLGUT
Aquila Corde sells Nylgut directly. (For those of us in the US, there is a US distributor.) Nylgut was engineered for historic harps, but they can be used in place of gut for any harp. I’m getting ready to put Nylgut on the rest of my Dusty FH36B. (I had already checked with Dusty and they told me that my particular harp was built for optional lever gut strings from second octave C to 4th octave G.) I’ve used it in the middle register and like it overall–it’s a little bit warmer. I had to regulate my harp after switching from Nylon to Silkgut and/or Nylgut. The gauges are significantly smaller than nylon.

REGULATION
I had already planned to change the cams on the Loveland levers. The harp was built in the early 90s and still had the original cams; I had two of the cams crack while practicing and I didn’t want that to happen when I was performing!. I worked with a local luthier (Rick Kemper in Silver Spring, MD) to order the cams. Changing them took (quite) a few hours, but that is done. Then came the work of regulation. I was really grateful for Steve Moss’s book: How to Regulate Your Lever Harp, Book One: The Loveland Lever.

GAUGES
Dusty Strings lists the gauges they recommend for gut strings in the description for each string on their string ordering page. Aquila Corde says they have engineered Nylgut to have the same tension and density as regular gut; you should use the same gauges for Nylgut as for regular gut.

Regarding gauges: I’m working out a few kinks. I’m trying out slightly lighter gauges for some of the 4th/5th octave strings. I’ll post more after I’ve evaluated them. I guessed on gauges for the top 5 strings by choosing to go up in decreasing gauges: Dusty recommends 0.62 mm for the 2nd octave E, so I just decreased by .02 mm per string (Nylgut gauges are in parenthesis–as you can see, you just take the gauge and remove the decimal):

1C – 0.52 mm (52 red)
1B – 0.54 mm (54 natural)
1A – 0.56 mm (56 natural)
1G – 0.58 mm (58 natural)
1F – 0.60 mm (60 black)

I just received my order from Curtis last Saturday, so I’m working on the task of restringing.

Another benefit of Nylgut: The upper strings come in 120 cm lengths (about 4 feet), which is enough length that I can get 3-5 lengths out of one string if I tie my knots carefully and rewind after about 24 hours. I regain 1 to 1.5 extra inches (3-4 cm) when I do this. The lower strings (starting at 150 / 1.50 mm) come in 180 cm lengths, which means I can get two strings out of many of them.

Happy harping!
Mark Pf…

[balfour-knight]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for posting all of this information. You guessed very well on those top first-octave gauges, and they are almost like mine. Take a look earlier in this thread on pages 1 and 2 for “lever-harp gauges.” I posted those as “a starting place” and of course, everyone can customize these for their own needs and preferences.

I will be very interested in what you think of the thicker-gauged strings, down through 4th-octave G on the Dusty FH36B. Because those particular strings are shorter than some lever harps down there, the gauges need to be thicker than what I posted for traditional lever harps, I imagine. Also, let me know if you try them in the 5th octave. I have never been fond of the nylon over nylon wrapped strings, and I would love it if the NGH Nylgut could replace those.

Happy stringing!
Balfour

[Charles]

Well hello there! I’m no stranger to synthetic gut strings, I abandoned natural gut at the start of the pandemic in favor of longer useful life strings.
I ordered a full set of Nylgut from Aquila in Italy. I rather enjoyed the process of building my string set based on the string gauge chart that came with my new pedal harp. They took a while to stabilize but now that they stable it’s business as usual.

[balfour-knight]

Glad to hear of your success with the NGH New Nylgut harp strings, Charles! I continue to be impressed with mine on my Camac pedal harp. Since I only have them on the top 16 strings, they stabilize in a couple of days. I imagine that the lower, longer strings would take longer to stabilize. About a month ago, I put new nylon (not Nylgut!) strings on my Dusty Strings FH36S and they have taken “forever” to stabilize. I tune that harp 2 or 3 times a day, too. I have always had this problem with nylon, more so than with gut or Nylgut, so I think Nylgut is super! Another thing that I have found is that Nylgut, unlike nylon, still sounds wonderful after being on my pedal harp for over 14 months now! Only the top 0G has broken in all of that time! I won’t restring them until they either break or begin to sound bad, just like I do with gut. I did recently order new ones from Curtis at Aquila, USA, so that I am prepared.

Thanks so much for your post here, Charles. Have a great day and enjoy playing the harp!
Cheers,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

Hello everybody!

My New Nylgut NGH strings by Aquila are still doing great on my Camac pedal harp. Thanks to everyone who has posted here on my thread.

Charles, it was so good to hear about your experience with Aquila in Italy. I believe you are in the UK? I was glad to read that you got a “new pedal harp.” By any chance, was it a Camac?

Mark, I hope your nylgut strings are doing well on your Dusty Strings harps. Do you like how they perform in the middle and lower registers of your harps?

Have a wonderful day playing your harps,
Balfour

[balfour-knight]

I’m looking for the last post by Mark, and it is not here! Please help, Harp Column.

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