Not the PVA. If applied on top, it produces a rubbery film which does not quite work under the fingers, and wears on the bends and probably meeting the frets. You could experiment with it, of course, but my feeling is that it does not really work. I find a comment in my database "sound... plasticky?but strong", and do recall it affecting the sound very negatively. Plus, a very important point, glues applied to silk while twisting, have to be at least warm, or better hot. Cold glues create more unevenness in the way filaments align. PVA falls apart under the heat.
On point 2. Every silk dyer i spoke with, insists that you have to degum silk freshly before making it take salts or dyes. So did the fly-fishing silk line makers, who basically varnish the silk. My experiments with already degummed silks were less encouraging then degum-your-own. However! As you well know, there are always other ways to which one person can be blind, and another - not. The difficulty with already degummed silks is this: there is no way to spool degummed filament. Raw silk filament of 20/22 Denier has 12 actual original filaments made by a worm. They are called continuous filament, and to all purpose there are most of the time really 12 filaments there, but sometimes less, sometimes more. The reeling machine grabs filaments as needed and adds them to the whole. The filament of 12 is held together by the sericin, a hot water soluable glue, that the worm creates. Once you remove this glue (and you have to, as no salt or anything else will get combined with fibroin through sericin), all the loose filaments have nothing to hold them together. It can be quite a mess, if the filaments dry out, or (as mentioned) caught on skin and such. For this reason any degummed filament is twisted into a tiny cord usually of 2, or 3. This particular store does not seem to sell continuous filament degummed. Very few do, as it is very difficult to make. If they do, it will be quite thick to begin with, about 100 denier or such. Such a cord will be difficult to shape into a smooth string. Spun silk thread is softer and more pliable, but all sorts of glues and oils and sometimes salts and other chemicals are used in production, and i had spun silk that no glue wanted to stick to, even the PVA! If you find a relatively clean spun silk thread, you might be able to load it with cinnabar, or such. I hope this answers. alexander Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Many thanks for this detailed reply - I'll have to digest it before seeing if > I'm capable of doing anything realistic. > > But first a couple more questions: > > 1. As an adhesive to bind the filaments together you use agar/salt: could one > use an adhesive like PVA which is flexible and possibly easier to use and > possibly rather more resistant to moisture? > > 2. Why does one need to start with individual filaments (eg 300 of > 20/22Denier) - could one not start with silk twine which I note the firm you > mentioned also offers? Presumably the twine is twisted evenely so much of the > work is done. > > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
