Here are some thoughts for surbahar strings.
Remco, from the sitar forum, was kind enough to share his string sizes:
Surbahar String Size Metric
0,37 mm for the Baj (steel): a tad thicker that the usual 0,35
0,55 mm for the Jod (bronze)
0,70 mm for the Pancham (bronze)
0,95 mm for the Kharaj (brass)
0,40 mm for the Pa-chik
0,30 mm for the Sa-chik
0,25 mm for the Sa-highchik
"I've played with the wound Kharaj when studying with Pt. Ashok Pathak, but Bahauddin made me change to a solid one. I experimented with material and gauge (0.90 too floppy...1.00 mm too stiff: this was with bronze...thing is: the 0,95..a nice compromize was only available in brass...)"
A good place to get bulk wire is from fortepiano.com, you need to convert Remco's data to inches. Here is the ordering information:
Link to FortePiano.com
Surbahar String Sizes SAE
Baj 14 (steel ask for large roeslau .014)
Jure 22 (bronze #1631-22)
Laraj 28 (bronze #1631-28)
Karaj 36 (bronze #1631-36 or brass #1651-36)
Chickaris:
Pa 16 (steel ask for large roeslau .016)
Sa 12 (steel ask for large roeslau .012)
Sa 10 (steel ask for large roeslau .010)
Tarabs:
All the same: steel ask for large roeslau .009
Just send Lutz an email. NB it takes two emails due to his spam filter.
