Hio folks! JackPeters wrote:

>Where do you find hard drawn BR copper in small wire sizes. I had 
>heard 
>about this 20 or so years ago when I was having trouble getting my 
>Barton copies up to modern pitch. The stuff I found as silvery white 
>and 
>had a very nice sound and was just enough stronger for the 10 3/4 
>scale 
>as I recall.

Two points:  BeCu wire is no stronger than brass: it breaks at about 
the same pitch.  It's use, in its heyday back in the 50s and 60s, 
(like phosphor-bronze) was to replace brass which, in the polluted 
atmosphere of cities in those days, broke very frequently.

Also, the Barton's c ' '  is 11 3/4" not 10 3/4" which makes it a 
short-scaled iron wire instrument. Voss sounds very good with that 
scaling even at 415 pitch. The thing that most surprised me was that 
you don't hear any pitch-drop at the pluck.  Malcolm Rose has copied 
the Barton, and reported that strung with his iron (well -low carbon 
steel) wire, he also found the tone very good.

Best!

Peter Redstone
http://www.ctg.net/redstone