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Wang Peng 王鵬 1
Wang Peng at the entrance to his factory south of Beijing 2 
Wang Peng is currently making over 20 qins a month at his new factory at 魏善莊 Weishanzhuang, south of Beijing. Most of them have nylon-wrapped metal strings, as this is what the market demands. However, he also makes instruments specifically designed for silk strings, and to my knowledge is the only qin maker (as of 2008) who makes this claim. Most encouragingly, when I visited Weishanzhuang in 2008 he showed me a room he has set aside for making silk strings himself, "beginning next year".

On 2-6 August 2005 the Hong Kong Weekend Standard published an article by Simon Song about Wang Peng. It can now be seen online.

   The front and back of a new silk-string qin by Wang Peng  
 

 
Footnotes

1. Wang Peng (mobile# 86-1370 110 8343, but he speaks no English) says that the main differences between his qins for use with silk strings are in three areas.

  1. Wood for metal string qins can be thicker than that for silk string qins
  2. The top surface of a metal string qin should be a bit flatter than that for a silk string qin
  3. The shape of the sound box is somewhat different

On the other hand, the sound boxes on Wang Peng's more recent qin do not have classical shape. Instead of including the two sound posts (tianzhu and dizhu), he makes the top board thicker on one side.
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