This groovy discussion causes me to ponder: Should the string grooves at the nut be the full width of the string, or should they be only as deep and wide as required to hold the string in position - prevent it from sliding laterally? Similarly how deep / wide should the grooves on a Viola da Gamba bridge be? What do the builders on the list have to say? Many thanks, Bob Purrenhage
On Thursday, November 28, 2019, 10:27:11 AM EST, Leonard Williams <arc...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote: Something I had not thought of--width of groove. Depth should not be a problem; in fact, near the nut the upper surface of the octave should be lower than the bass. BUT--I had not considered looseness across the groove. I'll look into that. Thanks for the tip! Regards, Leonard -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Hind <[1]agno3ph...@yahoo.com> To: Leonard Williams <[2]arc...@verizon.net>; daillie <[3]dail...@club-internet.fr> Cc: lute <[4]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thu, Nov 28, 2019 3:32 am Subject: Re : [LUTE] Re: Unison C string on 8c lutes Could it perhaps be Leonard, that the grooves at your nut at 5C was set up for your thicker unisson strings. Something similar happened to me on my 11C lute, when I replaced Venice twine unissons on F4 with equivalent thinner loaded strings. I heard a definite rattle. I put the Venices back and the problem went away. However later on my 3A unisson HT gut strings a similar rattle appeared, I hadn't changed the diameter, but perhaps some wear had slightly widened the groove or the neck moved a little. I could have changed to slightly thicker strings, but a lute maker friend said he could lightly fill and raise the nut's groove with dentist's dentine. This did the trick, so this solution for changing to octaves could possibly work for you. On my 7C lute, on 5C, I have Venice twine unissons and like yourself, I have been thinking of moving to 1.00 Venice bass and 0.52HT octave, but I fear a similar problem will occur as the lute originally was set up for the unisons so with a wider 1.00mm groove Also, I imagine perhaps wrongly, that a 0,52 Ht gut string will last a lot less than a 1.00 Venice unisson. Am I wrong about that? Best wishes Anthony [1]Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone Le mercredi, novembre 27, 2019, 8:33 PM, Leonard Williams <[5]arc...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu> a à ©crit : I, too have had issues with octaves on the 5th course of my 8 course lute. I tried it several years ago, using an octave half the diameter of the bass (all in gut). But, whereas the octave g on 6th blended well with its bass, the octave c stood out, sounding jangly, almost as though I had a metal string on there. Perhaps it was poor (thumb-in in this case) technique? At any rate, I switched back to unison. I'm trying octaves again as a result of this discussion, same stringing. One thing I paid careful attention to was the height of the octave: it stood a mere half millimeter above the bass at the bridge, but enough that I was striking the pair of strings unevenly, with the octave ringing out quite plainly. I adjusted the bridge knot, what little I could, and the sound improved somewhat. Perhaps further work with RH technique will further improve the sound. Or--any other suggestions?? Regards to all, and Happy (US) Thanksgiving! Leonard Williams -- References 1. [6]https://yho.com/footer0 To get on or off this list see list information at [7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:agno3ph...@yahoo.com 2. mailto:arc...@verizon.net 3. mailto:dail...@club-internet.fr 4. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 5. mailto:arc...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu 6. https://yho.com/footer0 7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html