nylon

[unknown-user]

One of the things I enjoy fooling around with is stringing. Within the confines of what the soundboard is built for, vibrating length and uniform tension. There’s always lots of discussion on gut strings and wires. For the obvious reason that there lots of variety in types, finishes, cores, wraps, and all that happy stuff.
All of that said- there never seems to be any discussion of nylon. Other than monofilament nylon for instruments is different than fishing line. So is there any opinion out there on who, or what, makes a better sounding nylon? Also what happened to nylagut? It seemed to be a hot topic for a little while and then disappeared without any evaluation from anyone.

In case anyone is wondering- I have an antique pedal harp (no- I’m not re-stringing that one) and 3 folk harps of modern manufacture. I was into wire harps for a couple of years and really enjoyed the heck out of them. I may get back into wire someday.

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

I tried Bow brand nylons, Camac nylons and I didn’t like either of them. I switched to Pirastro nylons and I LOVE THEM! They have such a lovely bell-like ring to them.

Briggs

[bernhard-schmidt]

Hallo Kris,

good question….
From my view of harpmaking

[bernhard-schmidt]

Briggs,

I wanted to say, that I do not know for absolute

[Dwyn .]

I’m pretty new to harps and certainly no connoisseur of the subtle sound quality differences between strings, but I’ve currently got Nylgut on part of the lower range of my circa 1825 double action Grecian (made by JA Stumpff, an Erard apprentice before opening his own shop).

[tony-morosco]

I’ll second the Pirastro nylon strings. I have no problem with Bow Brand, but the Pirastro

[bernhard-schmidt]

Tony,

>They produce more tension, which means that you need to use a thiner gauge, and I don’t like the feel of thin gauge strings<
This is not true for

[tony-morosco]

OK, all these names and classifications get confusing. I thought Nylgut was just a marketing name for the carbon strings.

The strings I use are the so called carbon fiber strings from Savarez. Those are definitely thinner.

If Nylgut is the same diameter as gut then perhaps it is worth a try, but how do they sound compared to gut?

[bernhard-schmidt]

Tony,

Nylgut is a different material than Nylon or Carbon/Composite.

Yes, Carbon strings from Savarez are thinner than an

[unknown-user]

I have gotten the best results with Pirastro Starke or heavy gauge nylon strings. But, they have stopped manufacturing them. We need an outcry and large number of purchasers to get them back into manufacture.

[unknown-user]

Bernard,

[bernhard-schmidt]

Saul,
do you know when

[carl-swanson]

Bernhard- I would love to see comparative tables or graphs of all of the types of strings available, showing the tension they produce. In other words, I’d like to see comparisons of each of the types of strings available, comparing the same diameter and the same length for each string and what tension it takes to get them up to the same pitch. A short version of this could compare for example all of the C strings on the harp, and the vibrating length would be for the C flat position(the longest length for each octave). A longer version of course would give this information for every string on the harp. The delux version would also say how much thinner or thicker(in thousands of an inch or milimeters) one type of string has to be to produce the equivalent tension of another type of string. I would like to see this done for the wire strings as well.

Do you know if this information is available? Do you know anyone who would be interested and capable of doing it? As different types of strings become available, it is critically important that harpists understand what happens when they change one type of string for another. There are two completely seperate issues concerning harp strings. One is of course the quality of the sound produced by one type of string or another. The other is the amount of tension resulting from using one type of string or another, and the effect it will have on the life of the instrument, particularly the soundboard.

[bernhard-schmidt]

Carl,

as you wrote

>There are two completely seperate issues concerning harp strings. One is of course the quality of the sound produced by one type of string or another. The other is the amount of tension resulting from using one type of string or another, and the effect it will have on the life of the instrument, particularly the soundboard. <

Exactly…
I think we get lost of the knowledge of strings ….it was more easy some years back. Just Nylon…thats it. Today

[bernhard-schmidt]

Sorry, I forgotten the Nylgut which is a drademark of

[Author]

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