Strings…gut/carbon fibre/chicken wire!!!!

[HBrock25]

I have a lovely lever harp with standard gut strings – getting on a bit now. Thinking of re-stringing with light gut or even carbon fibre since it is really hard work playing folk music with them . Has anyone any experience of altering the strings on their harp – I’m a bit scared that I lose the lovely tone.?

[Tacye]

What sort of harp is it?

[carl-swanson]

Carbon fiber strings are very high tension and will over time damage the soundboard and neck. Gut strings are somewhat less tension, and nylon are considerably less tension than gut.

[jessica-wolff]

What about nylgut?

[carl-swanson]

I have no idea what that is.

[Tacye]

Despite Carl’s blanket statement about CF strings the tension of course depends on the gauge of the strings.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Carbon fiber strings are definitely different. I practiced on a harp with them for a couple of weeks, and I was quite sore afterwards, it did some actual damage. They are much more resistant, and the tone is unattractive compared to gut or nylon. They sound like flouride for some reason. And then, you are likely absorbing flouride through your skin. How risky that is, I don’t know. I did have copper poisoning at one time, and the only likely source was harp strings. Fortunately, it has not recurred. It is not uncommon, apparently, for that to happen. I did play a wire-strung harp at one time, and it was so weird to go back to the regular strings.

[Karen Johns]

Hmmm…..that’s interesting Saul. So, the wire strung harp you had was strung with copper? Or was it bronze? I’ve never heard of this happening before. I play a wire-strung harp too, but it’s strung with steel. But it does make sense that any material/chemical you come in contact with will have a chance to

[carl-swanson]

Lever gauge Carbon Fiber strings are going to be higher tension than lever gauge gut or nylon strings.

[Audrey Nickel]

Wire-strung harps Celtic harps are traditionally strung with either bronze or brass, both of which are, I believe, an alloy of copper (I’d have to look it up to be sure…this is half-remembered information from high school, which was a long time ago).

[jessica-wolff]

Aquila nylgut. It’s a sort of gut substitute. What is hear is, the strings take forever to stretch out, but then they sound pretty good. This is mostly with reference to banjo or guitar, but they’re available for harp as well.

[Gary C]

Well, I’m new to harp, but I’ll jump in with nylgut.

Nylgut strings I use on my ukuleles as they give a good balance between gut tone and nylon durability. They’re strung to the same tension as nylon strings. I don’t know enough about harps to say whether or not either a nylon or gut strung harp could be strung with nylgut, nor even if nylgut harp strings are available. Be a bit longer than my soprano uke sets, I’d imagine!

[Gary C]

Yes. And what jessica said. They take ages to stretch in. I understand that the alliance harp strings are similar in this regard.

[Liam M]

The formula is rather simple physics.

[Dwyn .]

Nylgut is Aquila’s synthetic string — basically nylon, but with density closer to gut.

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