Mounting new set of Guqin silk strings

One of the packages (out of 5 purchased online) was opened. I am going to gift 2 of the packets of silk strings to my Guqin teacher, Master John Thompson, as a small token of my appreciation for teaching me how to play Guqin.

The sealed package was opened. The Guqin silk strings were tied into 3 separate bundles. From left: the bundle with the 1st (thickest) to 4th strings, the bundle (in the middle) with the 5th to 7th string (7th is the thinnest). The third bundle on the right is the spare 7th string.

After cutting the red ties of one of the bundles, I observed that the silk strings are still tied together by another red string. According to the instructions that came with the silk strings package, this is the end for tying into dragonfly knots. There is no label indicating which string is which. I had to compare the sizes of the strings myself to figure everything out.

This picture shows what all 7 guqin silk strings look like after the dragonfly knots have been tied. It's easy to tie the dragonfly knots on the thinner silk strings, but it's quite difficult to tie the dragonfly knots on the thicker silk strings. I used a pair of rounded pliers to shape the dragonfly knots on the thicker silk strings.

The end of each guqin silk string has been colored red by the manufacturer Master Pan Guo Hui to indicate that this is the end for tying into dragonfly knot. I really got lots of practice in tying dragonfly knots this time round. (Click here if you wanna read about my very first experience in trying to tie a dragonfly knot.)

The wild goose foot on my JunTianFang guqin has been pasted with some wrapped rougher white thread-like material to make it easier for the guqin strings to cling onto it.

Positioning the guqin in a vertically before mounting the new set of silk strings onto it.

Taking a short much needed break after exhausting all my energy pulling and mounting 4 of the 7 silk strings onto the Guqin.

After all the new silk strings have been mounted on the guqin, they are tuned to pitch (with the thickest 1st string tuned to B-flat), they are left to stretch overnight in its hard case. As you can see in this picture, 2 of the strings (no. 4 and no. 7) dragonfly knots have been tightened by me so much that their dragonfly knots have been moved far beyond the bridge (Yue Shan). I'd fix that the next time I remove and remount the silk strings, perhaps tomorrow.