From historical process to modern, from sheep to cow.
In this video I forgot to mention the most important thing: the use of bovine guts permitted to avoid a big part of the process, saving days of work and dozens of workers, and, last but not least, working with a standardized material, always same size.
If today a company is using sheep and is using historical process, that means all the previous steps I mentioned, employing all that people (at least 20) to keep the timing (to prevent the guts to decompose), and making something like 500 Strings per week (which, today, are not enough to pay for 20 people)
C’mon let’s twist again… We finally have our guts ready, well cleaned, softened, hardened, selected: we are ready to use the wheel and give some twisting! …then we take our protostrings and we put them on the frame, where we give more twisting, we check the tension is fine, we constantly check they don’t dry
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baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings
The “fresh gut” part Let’s get started, and of course we start from Salle, in Abruzzi (Italy). We’ll go and see how a factory was organized in the 18th century. Yes, I said factory, not workshop. When you take out the intestine from a sheep, the first thing you need to do is to empty it someway.
Read MoreMaking cordones for double-basses with a crochet, and recycling waste material
Read MoreHistorical gut strings manufacturing: cleaning with the thimble The last cleaning passage of the fresh gut was made using a copper thimble, pressing hard the thumb on the index finger. They did this 3 times a day for almost one week, using chemicals, and standing behind big tables with a parapet to protect them… G.
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