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. P. Pinaroli, Polyanthea Technica, Roma 1718-32

Catalogue from Mirecourt, 1912

Factory La Bella, New York Long Island, 1940/50 (courtesy of mr. Daniel Mari)

Factory La Bella, New York Long Island, 1940/50 (courtesy of mr. Daniel Mari)


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


You may also like

Polishing and gauging

How the gauge is determined at the polishing and on half polished and smooth strings…. Can you guess why you can never be sure of the quality of a polished string? Want to know more? There’s a downloadable report here, it’s free, no opt-in!

Read More

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.

Read More

Worst job in history

From the famous BBC serie …the string maker is at minute 39′, the hands of the string maker belogs to Mr. George Stoppani

Read More