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 idea came to a cello player… Sometimes, you wander around the web and you find little gems which only apparently have little to do with what you were looking for. …but at a closer look… at 0’30 there are some historical pictures: note the dimensions of the factory and the name: Maillot is the actual
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Drying, polishing, packaging The strings dried and still on the frames were polished by hand, using horse hair, or equisetum, polish stone or powder, or, later, sandpaper. About horse hairs: equisetum is also called horse tail, so for a long time wi thought that when they say we polished with horse tail, they were referring to
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Historical 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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