Back in January 2012, I had some work performed on my 130 year old "Caspar da Salo violin. New bridge, reshaped the finger board, new sound post and a new set of strings. In March 2012 I decided to replace the strings on it, they sounded awefull bright and tinny, little did I know that the Luthier had put on "helicore", by D'Addario, good string but not quite what I wanted in sound, so I replaced them with "Zyex" from Fiddlershop, I took the helicore's off the Caspar and put them on my Chinese violin. July 19, 2012 I ordered another set of "Zyex" again from Fiddlershop. Monday, July 23, I was changing strings again, this time I put the old set of "Zyex's" and put them on the Chinese violin. While changing the string's I noticed how flimsy the "helicore" string's felt in my finger's, so I decided to "mic" both set's of strings. Zyex, (E,.011 - A,.026 - D,.028 - G,.033) "helicore", (E,.011 -A,.022 - D,.024 - G,..027)....

My question if anyone know's what the guage / thickness of "helicore" light string's would be. I'm wondering if the Luthier put on the light gauge string's on my violin back in January instead of medium gauge.

I tried to find a violin string gauge chart and all I could find was for guitar. So while searching I went to "D'Addario" website to check there, again all they had was a chart for guitar, mandolin, banjo, etc.... It's a PDF file you can download.

I noticed on the back of the string packs it says, "Players Points", so out of curiosity I went to... http://www.daddariobowed.com to see what that was all about. Seem's you can / could add together your point's on the back of each string pack and redeem them for merchandise. D'Addario, is still honoring any point's that you may have on the back of the string packs. D'Addario will be starting a new promotional offer through "facebook" in the fall of 2012, where you can still get merchandise. Their whole explanation is there when you go to their website, along with other great information, like on all the different string's they make, w/demo's. There are also hundred's of instructional video's of many different instruments.

I appoligize for the length of this post, I got carried away.