strings
guitar
carbon
fluorocarbon
treble
fluorocarbon strings for classical guitar
| |||
       
|
FluorocarbonThe Next Great Thing in Guitar StringsNylon:Nylon was invented by the Dupont company in 1935, and one of the early uses was as fishing line. During World War II gut for guitar strings was diverted to medical uses for suturing wounds, and in the resulting shortage, nylon fishing line was adapted for use as guitar strings and found to be superior to gut in durability, although never in tone. Today, nylon strings are a fraction of the cost of gut and are the standard string for classical and flamenco guitars.However, since the introduction of nylon strings, there have been two additional developments. Nylgut looks to the past: |
| |
Worth mentioning in passing is the development of "Nylgut" - a synthetic which purports to be
more similar to gut, in tone, weight and feel, than nylon is. We haven't tried Nylgut yet...
It's on our list! You can get it from
Strings by Mail.
The reports we have read on Nylgut say that the treble strings break a lot, and this has discouraged us from trying them
- who needs strings that break? - although some players report that they love the sound.
Beyond Nylon: FluorocarbonThe other important development was the invention by the Japanese chemical company Kureha in the 1970s of fluorocarbon polyfilament fishing line. (The Japanese take fishing very seriously.) This is the same type of material used in the so-called "carbon" strings which are available from Savarez Alliance, Oasis, Galli Carbonio, and other manufacturers. (We speculate that following the freon ban, the chemical companies started researching alternative uses for fluorocarbon compounds.)Advantages of Fluorocarbon:The advantage over nylon is increased volume and brilliance. There is one additional benefit, which is that fluorocarbon is not as temperature sensitive as nylon. As any working guitarist knows, nylon strings go out of tune when a door is opened, the sun comes out, the wind changes, or the furnace kicks on. A small temperature change affects the solid nylon trebles, which go sharp when the temperature goes up and flat when it drops, while the basses remain at pitch. This is a pain during an outdoor gig, or when playing near the door of a restaurant in the wintertime. Fluorocarbon strings are less sensitive in this respect. Both nylon and fluorocarbon are an improvement on gut, which is also sensitive to changes in humidity.Issues with manufactured fluorocarbon strings:We have tried all three of the brands mentioned above. Savarez Alliance, which was introduced in the 1980's, is still the best of these. We have had various problems with bad intonation and / or delamination of the strings with all of them, which means there's room for improvement. Since the material is a polyfilament, it is possible for fibers to begin to separate from the string and it quickly becomes un-usable. We experimented with Galli and Oasis carbon strings in late 2007 and early 2008. Hannabach also makes a "carbon" string, but we haven't tried it yet.
A New Source:Thanks to a tip from a helpful poster on the Delcamp guitar forum, we found fluorocarbon fishing leader made by Kureha's subsidiary Seaguar, which is readily available from fishing supply stores online in 25 meter reels and in a variety of diameters. We ordered six reels in the most likely diameters, based on calculations of the density / diameter / pitch / tension equation, using an online string tension calculator for estimates.The Seaguar strings are loud but well-balanced, and lack the "pingy" quality which the Savarez Alliance has. They are very temperature stable; we just played an outdoor gig where the sun moved and we found ourselves playing in full sun after starting in the shade, and (amazingly!) there was almost no change in the pitch. Also, consider this: we have a 25 meter roll of this material for each of the treble strings. We can easily decide to just change one string without worrying about breaking a packaged set — just unroll another one off the roll! Fluorocarbon is a little more slippery than nylon, so we have found that it pays to melt the string end into a little ball at the bridge end to keep the knot from slipping. About Gauges and Tensions:We are using 650 mm scale length guitars. We bought 6 gauges of Seaguar fishing leader: .47mm, .52mm, .62mm, .66mm, .74mm, and .91mm. These are the gauges that we found available within the likely range of diameters suited for guitar strings. (You can try to use "pounds test" figures for guidance, but diameter measurements are more useful. Some fishing supply websites give diameters, in either thousandths of an inch, millimeters to 2 decimals, or both, and others give only the "pounds test" figures.) As it turns out, we can get a light gauge set and a heavy gauge set from these, as follows:
Light Gauge Set of Seaguar Trebles:
Heavy Gauge Set of Seaguar Trebles:
Note that the B string is a little lighter than the E and G. A .70mm B string would work, in theory, and be closer to the tension of the other two. We haven't had any reason to complain about the .66mm B string, though. We started cautiously with the light gauge set. They sounded very good, and were very easy to play and very responsive, but after two weekends of gigs, we decided they didn't have quite enough punch and so we switched to the higher tension. We've been using the higher tension for about eight months as of this page update, and are very happy with them. You may buy any brand of bass strings (without trebles) from Strings By Mail. We are currently using silver wound basses ("Alchemia") from the Aquila string company. If you want to experiment cautiously, try buying just a spool of .52mm (35 pound test) line for your high E string (about $16 USD). You can replace the E string on a set of Savarez Alliance (or any other brand of string, for that matter) with the Seaguar E string and see if you like it. Online Source for Seaguar Strings:http://www.anglerscenter.com/terminal_leader_seaguar_premier.htmThe cost of these strings averages out, with shipping, to about $3.50 USD a set of trebles, with the high tension G string being the most expensive at about $30 a 25-meter reel, the others less. | |||
Last page update 12-26-08 |
|||