Strings for style 22

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

I recently acquired an antique style 22. I have not brought it up to pitch due to cracks and have tried to contact L&H about long term repair. Emailed two days ago and left voicemail yesterday. However I am enjoying playing the harp still with the strings loose where relatively A is tuned down to F. In enjoying the harp this way, it has the decades old wires on it that have tarnished so I’m struggling to navigate the base. Can I clean the wires like one would clean silver? This is just temporary. I would change strings but I don’t understand the proper gauges for this harp. So I can’t take my regular harp string stash and replace them. I’m thinking maybe these old strings were so old the gauges were different. So in summary here are my questions:

1) can I clean the current tarnished strings so I can navigate the base better for now? Baking soda?
2) what was the original gauging for this harp? Serial 1090, style 22.
3) I see bow brands wire gauge chart on their site, what is Vanderbilt gauging? I read on this forum that some people think it’s lighter. That would be good for my case.
4) I saw from a Google search Vermont strings mentioned for lighter gauging, I cannot find a website for them anymore. Did they go out of business?

[charles-nix]

You can not clean all the strings with anything that will not ruin them. And you should never have any metal polish near any part of the harp. The abrasive will find it’s way into the action.

If I Just HAD to do something, I would clean the C’s and F’s by rubbing with a non abrasive nylon pad to lighten up the tarnish on just those.

Vermont strings has retired. Their son in law runs North Shore Strings. However, they are a custom folk harp string supplier.

You need pedal harp gut strings at a lighter gauge. Directly contact Carl Swanson at Swanson harp, or Bell Harp, or one of the long established L&H certified techs. Lyon and Healy build new harps. Go to a very good independent shop for a rebuild. At least that’s my opinion. The lack of response is not unusual, in my experience.

You will probably be at Bow Brand light gauge, and may have to have custom bass wires.

But a good tech needs to look at it first to assess the damage and condition.

Neither Vanderbilt nor Premiere are enough gauge difference to matter in helping the harp hold the tension.

[balfour-knight]

Lever-gauge gut is about 3 gauges lighter, and might work on this antique L&H 22. Bow Brand lever wires are lighter, also, and might be a possibility. I agree with Charles, though–take the harp to a good harp tech first.

[balfour-knight]

I just looked on harp.com and Bow Brand lever wire strings do not go down far enough in the bass for a pedal harp, unless you could order them custom. Hope all this works out.

Cheers,
Balfour

[charles-nix]

Between the BB schedules for light, and Savarez’ wide range of available sizes, (and Vanderbilt and Premiere) lots of custom gauge sets at any degree of “lightness” can be assembled if needed. Most will require special order to assemble a full set.

The big deal is we don’t know how bad or where the “cracks” are. Is it a vertical crack in the top veneer of soundboard? (Likely no problem at all.) Is the center of the soundboard bulging alongside the center strip (Big deal for sure.) Is the crack in the neck? (Very big deal). Is the crack in the body? (No big deal to extremely big deal, depending.) And, with a harp that age, how many people have “tried” to repair these cracks before OP acquired it?

Perhaps we will hear back from the OP…

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

A style 22 harp does not have different string gauging from any other Lyon & Healy Concert Grand. What you can do to clean wire string is to gently rub them with a nylon kitchen scrubber, or, to detune them, wrap the string around a bottle (glass Coke bottle with the convex middle is ideal) and slide the bottle up and down the string, which will cause the accumulated debris in the grooves to fall out. Then wipe it with a soft cloth to further clean it after you retune the string. This would refresh the sound for a few months. This is what we used to do in the 1970s. But you can simply put on new fresh silver and copper strings and not bring them all the way up to pitch. The question is, where are the cracks and how deep are they? You can take photos and send them to a harp technician for advice, such as the great Karen Rokos.

[balfour-knight]

If this harp is old enough, it may have had lighter stringing than what is standard now. One should do careful research, so as not to hurt the harp.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by balfour-knight.

[Sidney Dharmavaram]

Unfortunately, this harp needs a new neck. Cracks are in the front veneer piece on the neck and do not go through to the 1″ thick main piece of wood, as far as I can tell. I’m just wondering if it’s at least playable “a little” until I can finance the repair. Again I have it tuned where A440 is actually F349.

Saul suggested the base wire strings on it are the same as modern. The reason I possibly wondered is because of this article: https://www.oldharpsmadeyoung.com/single-post/2014/09/26/string-and-string-tension This 22 I learned is from 1911. But I would venture the wire strings on it now are post 1935, but I can’t actually know for sure. The owner never did any regulation or anything and I can see the disc screws have zero wear from any regulation. So with no regulations done, perhaps strings were never changed unless they broke.

When I got the harp, one base wire was broken, a 6th oct D. And the string remnant looked identical to a modern D. I put a modern E on instead so it would be a little less tension and of course it’s still strung two whole steps flat. It’s really giving me playing problems with the brightest wire being D amongst all the black tarnished strings, but lighter copper too. All the opposite visual cues mixed with one inconsistency.

I have backed off playing the 22. I also acquired a 15 in good condition and am so putting more of my playing efforts into that for now. I’m tuning the 22 every day (to the extra loose tuning) just to make sure nothing actually goes sharp and everything is staying as consistent as it can.

[balfour-knight]

Sidney, my advice to you about the strings is to get yourself some measuring calipers so that you can determine the gauge thicknesses of the old strings yourself. Then you can compare your findings to modern harp strings, including the Bass wires.

[charles-nix]

I wonder if it is wise to go from existing gauge? After all, it is impossible that any of the extant strings are actually original at 110 years old. And who know what was put on by whom in the mean time. That could be part of the reason for the neck failure.

And restringing even with lever strings will immediately require regulation. There is no way that every single disc will close fully on smaller gauge strings throughout the harp.

This seriously needs the in-person evaluation and advice of a qualified technician. Only someone who knows exactly how the original necks were being built in that time period, and how to be sure this one _is_ truly still the original neck, can reliably tell how bad the damage is. And you might find out it isn’t that bad.

A veneer crack is not of consequence. But I would hope the underlying wood is somewhat more than 1″ thick. Many later harps would use piano pin plank laminate for the neck internal. But even _pianos_ of that age did not use what we now consider standard pin plank.

How far is the neck warped out of plane? Will the disc prongs on 4C and 3C engage the strings in the center, or are they near the tips? Is the neck crack up near the knee block where the last action screw goes through?

But nothing can substitute for a tech looking in person. Perhaps one is not too far from you? Where are you located?

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