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I just got a couple of lutes in for repair and need some advice. One is an Elizabethan lute and the other is a Baroque archlute by David Rubio. The Rubio is the one I have questions about. Does anyone here have a good source for fret gut? Also, it had a parchment binding that someone decided to remove. I need to know what kind of parchment to use and what's the best way to apply it.

I haven't used their product myself, but I've ordered fret gut for a friend in Paracho from these folks:http://www.aquilausa.com/luteguitar.html#Fret-Gut, and he was satisfied with the quality.

Send a PM to Colin Symonds. Colin S, username. Colin is the museum instrument restorer for the university where he works, in London, and he restores lutes of all types, as well as being an accomplished lute builder.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

You could check with Daniel Larson at Gamut Strings.

Jason, you are working on a Lute?
You may be the first actual Luthier that I've ever seen here.

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Aquila make very nice strings. Many think the best available. I have both their strings and Fret gut.
No doubt the lace was removed to remove/repair the soundboard and was never replaced.
I can't be certain but it's likely to be sheepskin. Around 0.2 mm is the thickness used for Parchment rosettes. It is difficult to glue, you need to 'size' the parchment before the actual gluing. I can't help on the procedure for doing it on a Lute because I've never used that particular 'lace' method. I've only done the wood half edge. in his CD course David Van Edwards states that he dislikes the use of Parchment for the edge work.
You also come across cloth being used, in the same manner as Parchment. I've seen it on both original and reproduction instruments. Probably easier (and cheaper) to use, unless it has silver thread woven into it.

Yes Aquila are the best generally available gut strings, they also do fret gut in various thicknesses. To answer your PM question, yes you will need a variety of sizes of fret gut, and don't forget that you add the frets after stringing the lute up to tension, you should then be able to gauge the fret sizes that you need to use.

I have only replaced the parchment banding on three lutes that I have restored and each time I used skin that was originally destined to be a timpani top, but you could also get the skin from a banjo suppliers. As has been said it will need to be sized to soften it first, and will need to be glued with a collagen glue, hide or fish. I have also used silk, as tended to be used on Italian lutes.

As a matter of interest, many moons ago I played Julian Bream's 8-course Rubio lute, with metal frets!

As we don't get enough music on this forum, here's me (when I could) playing some Dowland on one of my 10 course Venere lutes.

My Lady Hunsdon's Puffe

Colin

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Beautiful music beautifully played. Thank you Colin.

Indeed. That is very accomplished playing.

Colin, that is simply beautiful, no real way of describing it to do it justice!

The tone of that instrument is amazing and rather lovely playing to... more clips like in the locker?

I don't want to hijack the thread, but yes Frank I have a lot more recordings. I recorded the whole cannon of Dowland, and a lot of Weiss for the RCM archives on the lute, as well as a fair bit of Tarrega on the guitar. If you'd like a CD, Frank PM me.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Thanks everyone. Thanks Colin for the heads up on the value. I knew it was a nice instrument. Luckily I'm not doing anything major to it. The lace is the worst of it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

That was a pleasure to listen to Mr S, thank you.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.