Qin (in)Frequently Asked Questions on maintenance and other matters. -------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Can you recommend any easy way to tune a qin? See musician's supply and their web page on line for guitar tuners. Many of us use Korg "chromatic" tuners. -------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Where can I get a mechanical tuner that fits in or around the wild geese legs as I am "weak" :->, and have a hard time pulling qin strings tight enough according to the traditional method (or I have better things to do with my time) ? Or I am a macho man and too strong and I keep breaking my strings? First a pedagogical statement: It should be generally understood that these tuning machines give the qin two ways to be tuned. The tuning machine gives a rough tuning method. The pegs and silk cord give a fine tuning method. This is very useful if one string is out of whack because your silk cord (rong kou) is too tight and you can't raise the pitch of a string any more. Often you can avoid possibly having to restring four strings because one was troublesome. It is also important in general to have the "rong kou" silk or thread fastener solidly positioned on the yue-shan bridge. If it is over the edge one way or the other, sound is not properly transmitted through the bridge, and that string will not sound good. Fei Wang has sold them in the past. See her web pages. A tuner could be built by someone with wood-working skills. They use zither pins commonly found in pianos, harps, and other string instruments. Search the web for "zither pin". Zither pin wrenches can be found on-line as well. Zither pins do come in various sizes so before you buy a wrench on-line, you might want to measure your own zither pins. Common zither pins are 5 mm. (.198 inch) in width. A drill bit that is slightly smaller should be used (#15 drill bit I think?). In order to build such a tuner, one needs a bit, and a T-shaped wrench (although a vise grip will work), some hard wood (maple is commonly used), and zither pins. One may use a cross brace piece of wood brace that goes over the wild geese legs. Sometimes the cross brace is made out of metal, sometimes hard wood. Another option is to simply drill a hole in the maple wood and use a bit of leather string (shoe string will do) that is long enough to loop over the wild geese legs. The zither pin is usually inserted about half way in terms of its threaded part. Note that you may have to use a metal drill bit to drill out the zither pin string hole as it may be too small for qin strings. Be careful about rough edges on the new bigger hole. Try to smooth them off. Note that a T-tuner is not as convenient to use as a gooseneck tuner. Both can be found on-line, often at hammer dulcimer web sites. It is likely that gu-zheng builders are the suppliers of the zither pins and wrenches coming from China, although it may also have something to do with the piano industry in China. -------------------------------------------------------------- 3. will mechanical tuners work with silk strings, or just the nylon strings? Good question. Steve Dydo suggests making a box that uses violin pegs to get a rough substitute for the zither pin box. A few folks have said that zither pin mechanical tuners may damage silk strings. This may depend on how well the zither pins were made and certainly caution should be exercised in using them with silk strings. If a sharp rough corner exists on a zither pin it could certainly chew up a silk string (or a nylon string for that matter, even though the nylon strings usually have a metal wire at their core). It really isn't that hard to get silk string qin strings wrapped around the legs. It takes some practice. It is however hard to get the nylon/metal hybrid strings wrapped around and at the correct tension for them. See the advice below about silk strings and "man man lai" (go slow). -------------------------------------------------------------- 4. what is the Mandarin for the mechanical zither pin tuner box? TBD - I don't know. I suggest "zither pin box" or "violin peg box" to be clear in English. -------------------------------------------------------------- 5. is it possible to get real lacquer for repair or for building a qin? It is possible but it is not easy. Lacquer is said to be a toxic substance because it has the same chemical in it as poison oak, or poison ivy. Some countries will export it and some will not. Japan does export it (as does Taiwan I think). I have successfully ordered it in the U.S. from Japan. Small amounts of it curiously enough can be had from web-sites on-line that sell materials for shakuhachi or Japanese sword-fighting maintenance/repair. However it is not cheap. This might be enough for a small repair on a qin or lacquer-based qin table. Note that in Japanese lacquer is called "urushi". -------------------------------------------------------------- 6. what materials besides lacquer might be used in qin building? Many, write for details. How good they are is not clear. One interesting possibility is an artifical lacquer substitute made in Japan called Kashew. or Cashew. Cashew was devised by the Japanese chemical industry to be very close to natural lacquer, but to not have the "poison oak" toxicity or need high humidity to dry. -------------------------------------------------------------- 7. is it possible to get deer horn powder for qin building? It is possible, and it is not a toxic substance. Small amounts of it can be had from Japanese sword repair sites on the web. (Tsunoko powder, antler powder, deer horn powder, are all possible names). Tsunoko is Japanese for deer horn ("powder"?). Lu-jiao shuang in Chinese (deer horn powder ...). It should be noted that it has a usage in the Chinese materia medica, and this use makes it more expensive then it might be otherwise. One can substitute rock/brick powder for it, and possibly clay powder. Clay is used as a traditional material in lacquer making as an art or for furniture. I do not know if it would work on the surface of a qin. Rottenstone is cheap and might work. Pumice as used in woodworking might also work. -------------------------------------------------------------- 8. can you recommend anything other than a sandbag for qin placement on tables? The current popular sandbag replacement is some sort of non-skid plastic matting. This can be found in home supply stores, such as Home Depot in the U.S. and can probably be found in hardware stores too. This non-skid material is often used under rugs or in desk drawers to prevent tools from sliding around. Be careful though: it should not be (very) sticky. If too sticky it may pull out lacquer on a lacquer covered qin table. Another possible candidate is the sticky white/blue "putty" found in Art Supply stores often used for putting posters and other things on the wall. It can be put on or peeled off. One should also be cautious with this substance as it may damage the surface of a table, especially a lacquer table. -------------------------------------------------------------- 9. my qin has developed a crack? what should I do about it? Was your qin made in Szechwan? And are you living in the desert? Szechwan is a very humid place. In general a qin could be said to be a wood box surrounded by a lacquer box. Lacquer is cured by humidity, and then does not move or respond to humidity. Wood especially if not dried out to begin with may bend or move, and it also may shrink or become larger in more dry or less dry environments respectively. A qin has minimally two enemies (besides feet): 1. heat which if nothing else can cause the glue to melt (glue in the bridge, or between the top half and the bottom half, or to glue the wild geese feet to the bottom half), and 2. humidity (or more likely the lack of it) which can cause the wood to warp and can lead to cracks. The principle cause of cracks is probably that the wood for whatever reason (it might not have been seasoned enough to begin with) "moves" because it is more dry (or more wet), and the lacquer does not move. Lacquer once it cures is more or less immune to humidity. The wood however is NOT immune to humidity. The qin playing surface may warp because of this wood movement and a qin may become unplayable as a consequence. Or a crack may appear in the lacquer, or lacquer may flake off if the wood shrinks and enlarges due to temperature and humidity changes. Of course there are other possible causes of cracks. The lacquer may have been poorly applied. Warpage can and does occur because the wood used for top and/or bottom was insufficiently seasoned in the first place. Constant temperature and constant humidity are good for a qin. Changes in temperature and humidity are not good for a qin. 1. A humidifier is worth considering, and/or getting a humidity readout mechanism (common with weather/wine and other storage mechanisms). Classical guitars and violins suffer from the same sort of problems. 2. don't leave your qin in the sun. Sun isn't good for lacquer either. It is also not good for the glue in the qin. The back seat of a car in the sun is not good for qin either. 3. if you live in California, you are probably living in a desert. You may need to make sure your new qin has a more humid environment. You might put a wet sponge in the big sound hole for at least its first few years. (If you are living in Portland or Seattle, you probably should be careful in the summer with a new qin -- otherwise worry about mold :->). 4. if a crack appears and it is not on the playing surface, you should decide if you need more or less humidity (you probably need more if your qin came from China). It is more important to fix the environment problem so the situation does not get worse than to fix the crack itself, as long as the crack is somehow not fatal to the playability of the qin. You want to stablilize the crack first and keep it from getting bigger. Cracks do not always occur because of humidity problems, but that is probably the most common source. Since there may not be a qin repairman "nearby", one can always seek out guitar repair or violin repair people for advice. -------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Where can I get a qin table? Note that a qin table has a sound box. Fei Wang has sold them in the past, so check out her web pages. A student table with an empty desk drawer might work here. Some have observed that antique qin tables actually exist in the world of antiques, and the people selling them do not know what they are. (They assume it's just some sort of side table). -------------------------------------------------------------- 11. My fingernails are weak. Can I do anything about that? Biotin is said to help fingernails. It is an over the counter B vitamin. Apparently fingernail infections or fungus problems are very common and the translated section in the Yuguzhai seems to be aimed at that sort of problem. Of course one might seek assistance either from Eastern or Western medical sources. Bad fingernails may be an indication of a more serious medical problem. Note there is a chapter on-line from the Yuguzhai that seems to suggest various techniques based on the Chinese materia medica. One suggestion that will work: visit your local nail parlor and have fake nails put on. These synthetic nails are very very hard and many classical guitar players use them. -------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Where to get qin strings? For nylon/metal hybrid strings, see Fei's web pages. TBD on silk strings. Advice on this subject is appreciated. Clarion Music has sold them in the past but I don't know if they are any good. -------------------------------------------------------------- 14. I just got new silk strings and ... be careful about making them as tight as nylon/metal strings. Maybe start with A (not C) as a fundamental pitch for string 1. Note that silk strings are subject to more movement due to humidity (they are silk ... i.e., natural) and also they will stretch a lot especially at first. So be prepared to take them off and put them back on. And if too tight, they may break in unfortunate places like the middle of the string which is not something you can repair.