Hemping Newsletters
This is the first installment of our new newsletter. We'll have a useful tip and sale special every month. CE Kron & Co. Newsletter for October, 2002 #5 Contents: 1) Tip on hemping. 2) This month's special. ___________________________________________
Contents:
1) Tip on hemping.
2) This month's special.
___________________________________________
1. Tip on Hemping:
Use a double strand of hemp. Put two cops of hemp into an empty peanut or coffee can or jar and punch a hole in the plastic top. Then feed the two strands through the hole in the top.
When the top is affixed to the can or jar the strands then come out
through the top.
The cops unroll as you wrap the two strands.
A glass jar with a rigid top needs the hole to be drilled into its top.
The hole in the flimsy plastic lid of a can is easier to make, but the hemp will eventually tear the side of the hole.
Double strands allow you to put twice the tension on the hemp without breaking it. They also, of course, get the job done in half the time.
Two things to keep in mind:
Keep the tension evenly divided between the strands. If one strand has more tension, that strand will break, and the other just after.
Between the tenon and the walls of the bore it's to go into, there should be space for at least three full rows of doubled up hemp. Any more than six rows we call a "ball a' hemp."
More on hemping later this year.
2. This month's special:
Wool tri-color cords and tassels. Yellow, green, and white. Regularly $25 each, now $15 or $10 each if you take all nine in stock.
-- Charley Kron
www.cekron.com
1. Tip on Hemping:
Applying black wax to hemp is time consuming, unless you do it like the pros.
Put your warm wax lump into a piece of leather 4" square or so.
Now brush off the bottom of your shoe and leaving about four feet of hemp,
step on your doubled-up hemp strand (see newsletter #1, June 2002.)
Put the hemp over the wax and fold the leather over the hemp.
Stretch it taut with the four feet between the end and your foot.
Rub the leather up and down the hemp, waxing enough hemp to cover the first row on the tenon (more on this in another newsletter.) This is about three feet of wax for bottom and bass tenons, two and a half feet for tenor and pipe chanter tenons, and two feet for practice chanter tenons. Cut the end of the strands with scissors. This makes a nice clean end.
Beware of the wax "loading" with hemp lint after a lot of use. The wax will then grab and leave little galls on the hemp. These galls make good hemping impossible.
2. This month's special:
We're holding over last month's special: standard length all delrin practice chanters now $50 + shipping, regularly $75.
-- Charley Kron
www.cekron.com