Re: Historical wire strung questions

D. Peterson (harpbard@ccnet.com)
Thu, 4 Jan 1996 02:00:40 -0800

>But, I did take the time to enter the lengths for the Trinity College look
>alike which Robbie Robinson drew up many years ago. It's not an exact
>copy as there's some disclaimer in the notes about it being slightly
>larger and with somewhat wider string spacing, but it's closer than any
>other information I've got to anything historical which I can reliably
>take a ruler to. I believe Doug built one of these (from the Robinson's
>plans).
>
>Anyway, after seeing the numbers come out on my spreadsheet I have to
>wonder what these low headed harps sounded like. I mean, using the
>Bunting reported scale of CC DD EE GG (no FF) GG (sisters), etc., I come

Yep. I was able to tweak a bronze only schedule out and was able to make it
work. It is probably the kind of thing that was used. The harp is vastly
improved, though by using composite strings in the far bass. Still, it was
playable, had good string feel, and was quite stable.

As to Bunting's scales? The only thing that seems certain is that the
string bands were designed more by trial and error and perhaps by geometric
means (rather like the engineering of buildings at the time).

For those interested, here is the schedule for Robinson's Trinity without
any wrapped strings:
(sorry if it is too wide for your display).

string octave pitch freq length diam f
wrap Lbs T/L %limit
1 a 1760.0 2.25 b 0.016
10.4 4.6 42%
2 g 1567.9 2.75 b 0.016
12.4 4.5 49%
3 f 1396.9 3.25 b 0.016
13.7 4.2 55%
4 2 e 1318.5 3.75 b 0.016
16.3 4.3 65%
5 d 1174.6 4.13 b 0.016
15.6 3.8 62%
6 c 1046.5 4.75 b 0.018
20.8 4.4 65%
7 b 987.7 5.13 b 0.018
21.6 4.2 68%
8 a 880.0 5.50 b 0.018
19.7 3.6 62%
9 g 783.9 6.13 b 0.020
24.0 3.9 61%
10 f 698.4 6.75 b 0.020
23.1 3.4 59%
11 3 e 659.2 7.25 b 0.020
23.8 3.3 61%
12 d 587.3 8.50 b 0.020
25.9 3.1 66%
13 c 523.3 9.25 b 0.022
29.5 3.2 62%
14 b 493.8 10.13 b 0.022
31.5 3.1 66%
15 a 440.0 11.13 b 0.022
30.2 2.7 63%
16 g 391.9 12.50 b 0.025
40.3 3.2 64%
17 f 349.2 12.50 b 0.025
32.0 2.6 50%
18 4 e 329.6 12.75 b 0.025
29.6 2.3 47%
19 d 293.6 13.75 b 0.025
27.4 2.0 43%
20 c* 261.6 14.50 b 0.028
29.3 2.0 38%
21 b 246.9 16.00 b 0.028
31.8 2.0 41%
22 a 220.0 16.75 b 0.028
27.7 1.7 36%
23 g 195.9 18.25 b 0.028
26.1 1.4 34%
24 f 174.6 19.50 b 0.032
30.9 1.6 31%
25 5 e 164.8 20.50 b 0.032
30.4 1.5 30%
26 d 146.8 21.50 b 0.032
26.5 1.2 26%
27 c 130.8 23.00 b 0.032
24.1 1.0 24%
28 b 123.4 24.00 b 0.035
28.0 1.2 23%
29 a 110.0 25.00 b 0.035
24.1 1.0 20%
30 g 97.9 26.50 b 0.035
21.5 0.8 18%

mean 12
25 2.7 48%
Total 367.63
748.3