Mike,

Glad to be back! I'm going to append a message to you below your quoted message so that the entire list doesn't have to read it. But I send it to the list because some might be interested. JWM.

----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:19 PM
Subject: RE: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar


Jon-

Nice to hear from you again.

Mike Wilson

*
Mike, and all,

For some reason I haven't been seeing Lute Builder communications for some time, I guess I got them "lost in a filter" somehow. I'm going to toss in a bit of the personal just because I feel like it.

I got off track for a while due to some medical problems, these happen when you reach my advanced age <g>, luckily my age ain't that advanced (72) in these days. I have continued with my intent to write a book on strings - I've been doing physical experiments on the various materials with a few devices of my own concoction. The manufacturers provide some specs as to density and tensile strength - and these are key factors in instrument design - but many are out of date, and don't allow for the differences in manufacturing quality. I've built a "set of shears" (the two leg derrick used in the days of wooden ships to raise the masts) and a block and tackle rig to test the tensile strengths (the weights were a problem, then I got body builder's weights at a Modell's at a discount). I can put direct tension of up to 170 lbs. in increments of a half pound (and no, I don't start low and add half pounds). A jeweler's scale lets me test the density of the material. I'm working with steel, gut, Nylgut, bronze and brass - I hope to come up with a practical reference book for all stringed instruments.

I'm sure those who have read this far wonder why this effort when the formulae and principles of the strings have been known for centuries (and the basics known since Pythagorus). I got off onto a side track this summer when an emergency operation on one of my legs made me keep my leg up. I couldn't play my harp, which is my main instrument, and it wasn't a great position for the lute - so I started working with the medieval psaltery I'd made a couple of years ago - and had considered a bit of a toy. As I played it I realized that there was more to it than I thought - and I looked up the various paintings and sketches from the times and found it was often played as a polyphonic instrument laid horizontally, and with many more strings than the current makers use. Not the simple melody instrument of the "new age" practitioners. That returned me to the writing of the book, and started me on the idea of making fully capable psalteries for sale. (They are a lot easier to make than lutes).

Harps and lutes, psalteries and dulcimers (and I convinced that historically the dulcimer is a psaltery that is struck - they separated a couple of centuries ago). The strings are the same (given the material) but the criteria for selection are different. It is said that the lute should be tuned just under the break pitch of the chanterelle, then the rest appropriately. My "flat back" from Musikits was over length - it took a particular fishing line of a slightly higher tensile strength than musical nylon to get it to G. (Musikits changed its length on my advice). That brought me to the personal discovery of the long known fact that there is a "breaking pitch", something that should have been obvious - but like "Columbus and the egg" not generally recognized. Yet all the articles and texts that dealt with the string formulae were specific to the instrument. The harp maker, with his many strings pulling directly away from the soundboard, has to consider the total tension of all the strings (which can amount to over 1000 lbs), else the soundboard will pop. The luthier has different concerns as his strings are "stopped" to change the pitch, making the fixed length variable. The zither/cithera/lyre/psaltery maker is in between. I've recast the formulae algebraically, and am graphing the competing characteristics, such that I think I will come up with something universally useful (including the recasting regarding the use of "weight" measures of tension and the "force" measure as in Newtons). They are all the same, just use different fixed and independent variables.

OK, I've rambled. Now a bit more. My workshop is in a converted "walk-in" closet in my bedroom, and has spread into the bedroom. Storage of supplies and partially completed work is almost impossible. My lady and I have decided to move (she will sell her NYC co-op apartment and move here - we have bid on a slightly larger place in my development that has an attic!!! And a bedroom for me big enough to sleep in and have a properly laid out workshop - and keep my sawdust out of her living room). I expect that to happen in February, and the move is only a short drive (for Tiger Woods, a driver and a five iron for me) so I can move all the tools gradually and set up the workshop (the bed is a minor matter, who sleeps). When I'm set up I'll be able to work on the lute, perhaps another harp, and also make a production line for psalteries - and do my testing and writing for the book - without having to spend hours resetting up. I look forward to it.

Wish me good luck,

Best, Jon




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