The Conscious Polisher

That's me , or at least this is what I was in Aquila from 2002 up to 2016...

On gauge imposed on a string by the polishing process... why half polished are definitely better and why the quality control and the polishing must be done by the same person.

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Roughly Polished

When I suggest roughly polished strings instead of smooth heavily polished ones, I often receive a squint like I am interfering with personal choices on musical taste, or with technical issues of an instrument which I have never seen, let alone played.  It’s always been difficult for me to explain why I am firm on this

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Tags

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


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Historical manufacturing on italian tv

A video from Superquark , ed. 2013. Superquark is a popular tv show in Italy, about science, art, history. It shows the manufacture of gut strings.  At 2.06 it’s me cleaning the guts with the copper thimble.

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Quality of the string

What to check and what to avoid when you are choosing your strings. The most important thing to check is that the twisting of your string is even in the whole vibrating lenght. No white spots, no open twist, no different angles. You can easily feel those by Mersenne’s test. What is less important is the

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Making strings at D’Addario

Making modern strings at the D’Addario factory (quite old video). It looks like the machine is the same used in the past, to make handmade wound strings. You’re guided by Jim D’Addario himself explaining what is critical in the process, and the sensibility required by the worker.

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