On 29/05/2012 4:59 a.m., Chuck Guzis wrote:
Well, not exactly. Much of the property of violin bow
hair has to do
with the structure of the hair itself. Try bowing your violin with a
piece of rosined monofilament fishing line and you'll see what I mean.
Horsehair is used for a reason...
Ah well, it was really more of an interesting comparison than anything
precise - the gripping/shuddering type behaviour seemed similar. Next
thing, I was wondering if it might be possible to vary the tone somehow
and make a musical instrument out of a floppy drive with a sticky disk
in it, but then I realised that that was really going a bit mad. How
could you vary the resonant frequency of the disk? Not possible, I'd say!
The flip side of the overheating thing is fungus and
mold, which is
just as bad.
Oh yes, that's very common here. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be as
problematic. I was experimenting with a box of unused disks that had
visible fungus patterns on them, and they actually read and wrote fine
for extended periods, and didn't seem to be leaving any residue on the
heads. Though I have had similar disks fail, and gum up heads too, so it
certainly is a problem, I wouldn't recommend using even those disks I
tested for anything important.
Mike