silk strings

[Dr. Christopher Page]

Dear All,

Can anyone help me find a new source of overspun silk strings? I have been using gut and overspun silk on a c1825 guitar for several years, and am very keen to continue to do so, but I cannot get the Aquila silk strings to last more than a week, sometimes considerably less. I have checked all the obvious things that might be causing breakage, which generally seems to occur where the string coils around the peg. I usually play a semitone down from modern standard pitch.

Any ideas? I know that others (including Rob, I believe) have very different experience of the Aquila strings. 

Chris

[Lars Hedelius-Strikkertsen]

Hi Chris. I am currently using strings from this maker http://www.damianstrings.com/

They are good but sometimes it takes a while to get a response when you order.  I'm at this moment if possible trying to find some cheaper strings.

[Dr. Christopher Page]

Lars, that is very helpful. I will contact him. Can you tell me precisely what you use for courses 4,5 and 6?

[Dr. Christopher Page]

Lars, I have just had an email from Damian Dlugolecki saying that he does not make silk strings.

I'm confused!

[Lars Hedelius-Strikkertsen]

well I'm a bit confused as well. He mention silk on his website and I 've just checked my strings and they do not have gut core but threads of either silk or nylon. I think its silk now he mention it on his site. I am using the medium tension for my guitar

[Lars Hedelius-Strikkertsen]

sorry. I've just looked at the price list on his guitar strings, and i see that i does use nylon and not silk. I wasnt aware of that until now. Anyway, I find the bass strings very good.

Forgot to say, that Jelma from this forum mentioned a stringmaker that i am writting with. His name is Nicholas Baldock - http://www.baldock.de/ i am about to try his strings and he asked if i want silk or nylon. But he is also a bit slow in answering :-)

Try him

[Lars Hedelius-Strikkertsen]

So he must be making strings with silk

[Dr. Christopher Page]

I have heard a good deal (and all of it good) about Nick Baldock from Steve Barber. I will contact him. Thanks.

PS I had heard there was some kind if hiatus in his work recently.

[Jelma van Amersfoort]

Maybe this can be a source of silk basses ( I had a student who had these basses on his guitar, they sounded good) http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/ClGuSt.html, although I am a bit suspicious about the very high tensions he mentions. 

Jelma

[Dr. Christopher Page]

Thanks Jelma.

My real problem is that I cannot find metal-wound strings with a nylon core that work for me. The problem is not that they are too loud - one can always develop a lighter thumb - but that they saturate the ear with high harmonics and make the gut sound dull. When I use silk - while they last! - the gut has all its sweetness and clarity in arpeggios. Does anyone out there find this too?

[Lars Hedelius-Strikkertsen]

Well. Since yesterday I have allways thought that i was playing with silk :-) when using Damians strings so i can not answer to that. But to me it makes sence that the silk is more suited to gut. I must try silk instead. I might try the last maker that jelma mentioned with a thicker gauge then. But they are really expensive

[Jelma van Amersfoort]

Dear Christopher, I see what you mean now. What I do is I use Hannabach extra low tension (modern)  basses. The tension fits very well with the gauges of the gut that I use. When the basses are new, they are a bit bright and don't combine too well with the gut, but they become quieter after some time. (I've tried wound silk strings a few times, Aquila and I think Kürschner, but found them too unreliable). I hardly ever change the bass strings, and I change the gut strings more frequently -- though Baldocks strings are very long lasting.

[Jan Burgers]

Hi everybody,

A couple of weeks ago I started playing the gut & silk strings by Aquila, and I had the same experience as Christopher Page. With me it was the low E that broke after a couple of days, near the bridge (or rather, the metal winding became unwinded - if that is the correct expression). I just managed to re-use the shortened string by cutting the damaged part, but after a day or two the same thing happened again. Very frustrating. One expects the gut to break, not the basses! I think for the basses I revert to the Hannebach super low tension I used before.