Scan 105
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
12 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 89. See the scan on archive.org.
1effect of the lye is quicker in this case, but it is quite another question whether the results are equal to those produced in Italy.
3The gut strips are then wound upon a common ropemaker's wheel, of about three feet diameter; and it is essential, during this winding, that the operator shall constantly pass the strips between his two fingers, so as to discover any uneven places, and to assure himself that the piece is perfectly cylindrical.
5For the higher mandoline strings two strips of gut are used; for the violin E string, three or four pieces; four for the A string, and six to nine for the D string. The thinner the string is to be, the more tightly must the strips be wound round the wheel. Two, three, and in some cases four, windings are necessary.
7After the strips have been drawn out tightly by the wheel, and in order to secure the effects of the winding while the strips are still moist, they are stretched on a wooden frame five feet long and two feet wide. This frame is fitted with little wooden pegs, and on one of these pegs a strip is fastened, and then drawn out as far as it will reach and secured to another peg.
9While thus tightly stretched, the strings (as they may now be described) are taken into what is called the "sulphur room," a chamber about twelve feet square, which is so heated that the strings will be nearly, though not quite, dry in twenty-four hours. When they are about half dry, which is usually in somewhere about fourteen hours, about two and a half pounds of sulphur, in a bowl, is set burning, and burns for six hours. At the end of the twenty-four hours the now whitened strings are removed from the sulphur chamber, and again put upon the wheel for a further and final stretching, and are then burnished. For the thicker strings, the sulphuring, winding, and burnishing processes have to be once or twice repeated, and the strings allowed to dry in the open air, which in fine warm weather takes five or six hours.
11The finished strings are then anointed with fine olive
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