Has anybody an answer to the following. Archlutes often have a stringlength of about 65 cm. Tuning at 415 hz gives for a gut topstring a tension of 40 N, which is very high. My experience so far is that a gut string of 0.40 mm (I take 1350 kg/m3) is dying within an hour. I.e. not breaking but damaged due to the high tension. Fortunately I have some 0.38 and even 0.36 mm gut strings. The last is working fine. But a 0.36 mm string is something which is perhaps possible with modern stringmachines but in the past it was surely not. And I know only one stringmaker who is making these. So what was put on for example a sellas in the past? Was everything tuned down to 392 Hz? Some instruments were even 67 cm, so how to handle such an instrument without using carbon strings? Taco Walstra
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