Gimped Gut

Gimped gut strings were first mentioned in an advertisement in the 1664 edition of John Playford’s Introduction to the Skill of Music. The exact historical nature of these strings is not known; and the strings we produce are based on the descriptions of gimped lace of the period.

There is some room for discussion as to exactly what the nature of the gimped string was. Some feel that it was a gut or silk string wound with metal wire; and there is other evidence that it consisted of a wire that was wound into the gut, rather than on top of the gut — and this is the model concept we have used to develop our string.

The wire is twisted into the gut at the time of construction to resist buzzing and failure. There are several ways one can construct this string. The way that I have settled upon is a type of Pistoy construction so that the string will be as flexible as possible. This is important as the introduction of the wire has a stiffening effect.

The process embeds the wire into the string so there is no roughness due to the wire. The string is polished smooth in our polishing machine, but some strings have a slight texture to them. The gimped string is characterized by the barber-pole or candy stripe appearance of the wire in the twist of the gut.

We use two different types of wire for gimped strings; copper and silver. The copper wire is a little lighter than silver, so the resulting strings are slightly larger in diameter than the equivalent silver gimped string, and the copper makes the string slightly brighter in tone. Silver, being a heavier material, allows the string to have more weight with less gut, so these strings will be thinner than the equivalent copper gimped string, and, since silver is a softer than copper, silver gimped strings are softer and more flexible.

Gimped gut strings are gauged with the equivalent-gauge (=) system. This means that the gauge listed, such as =1.50mm, indicates that the string is approximately equal in weight to a plain gut string of that diameter. Of course, because the wire is much heavier than gut, the string will be much thinner than a plain gut string of the same weight. The thinness and wire give a bright tone.

Gimped Gut Strings are best used for:

    • Violin: D-3 and G-4

    • Viola: G-3 and C-4

    • Cello: G-3 and C-4

    • Bass Viol: C-4, G-5, and D-6

    • Tenor Viol: F-4, C-5 and G-6

    • Treble Viol: c-4 G-5, and D-6

    • Harp: bass strings

Custom Gimped gut strings are available in gauges from =.94mm to =2.00mm in the standard length of 48" (120cm) and Diapason length 96" (240cm).