strings love it, cats love it too

[Antares]

Joel Rappaport wrote:

>Want to complicate this further?  We have experience making bass strings
>in Germany and Austria and make the bass strings here at home for our
>own rebuilding projects.  We have always called roughing up the core
>wire before spinning the copper onto it, "kratzen" which is German for
>scratching.  I never heard of schraffing until it was offered as an
>option here in the USA.  Ron Torrella's research into the etymology is
>very enlightening, but I never heard those German terms in Europe.
>
>As David Sanderson pointed out, roughing up the core is to help the
>copper grab onto the core during spinning.  There are other factors
>which would cause dead strings and those must be taken into
>consideration.
>
>The schraffing or "kratzen" of the core, in my opinion, plays absolutely
>no role in whether you twist the bass string (ALWAYS in the direction of
>the winding, BTW).  Our procedure is one full twist for the singles, two
>full twists for the doubles and triples (to clarify:  this does not
>refer to the number of copper layers, but the number of strings in the
>unison).
>
>Hope this helps.
>
>Joel Rappaport
>Round Rock, Texas
>

Antares writes:

Dear Joel,
What you just wrote is the definite answer to this issue of "scratching"
strings.
To be more clear is unimaginable!
In my opinion you won a prize, thank you!