I was replacing some brass strings on my virginal yesterday and thought I was going to run out of one size. While some of the strings are iron further up the keyboard, the bottom octave is brass. I pondered if I ran out of the brass size I needed could I replace one with iron. My question is: is there a quick and dirty formula to replace a brass string with iron? Say it is a .018 brass. For a short term fix, what size iron would work? I.e…018 brass needs a .018 of iron times 1.3 or .9 or whatever? Thank you.
I was replacing some brass strings on my virginal yesterday and thought I was going to run out of one size. While some of the strings are iron further up the keyboard, the bottom octave is brass. I pondered if I ran out of the brass size I needed could I replace one with iron. My question is: is there a quick and dirty formula to replace a brass string with iron? Say it is a .018 brass. For a short term fix, what size iron would work?
A quick and decidedly dirty way would be to substitute an iron string one gauge thicker than the missing brass string.
The greater cross-sectional area would very roughly compensate for the lower density of the iron.
As this is to be short term you could, alternatively (neither will be ideal because of inharmonicity), use the same gauge and accept that the tension will be lower.
“For a short term fix, what size iron would work? I.e…018 brass needs a .018 of iron times 1.3 or .9 or whatever?”
If you increase the liner density of a steel string by a factor of 1.090 (ratio of material density) you need to increase the diameter by 1.044 (the linear density is proportional to the cross sectional area which is proportional to the square of the diameter): So, you have to go from a 0.018" diameter to a 0.0187” diameter, approximately 0.019” diameter, I would think. (I could not readily find the density of iron, so I used steel instead). You could try a 0,018” iron string, if your wires are really that precise; mine (Hubbard and Zuckermann) are not.
I was replacing some brass strings on my virginal yesterday and thought I was going to run out of one size. While some of the strings are iron further up the keyboard, the bottom octave is brass. I pondered if I ran out of the brass size I needed could I replace one with iron. My question is: is there a quick and dirty formula to replace a brass string with iron? Say it is a .018 brass. For a short term fix, what size iron would work? I.e…018 brass needs a .018 of iron times 1.3 or .9 or whatever? Thank you.
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