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

Polished or Rough Strings

What happens to a string while polishing. (one more way to save money) The difference between a slightly polished string and a perfectly smooth string and why it is definitely worth to choose the first One. Want to know more? There’s a downloadable report here, it’s free, no opt-in required!

Read More

Fancy mix is not a good idea

Why if you work in difficult climate conditions it is fundamental that you use strings from only one company and you don’t do fancy mix up… Every strings tends togo back to its past conditions, so as every string maker twist them and stretches them differently, it’s really complicate to deal with strings from different

Read More

Italian gut string Factories Process, part 3

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

Read More