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String protection
Written by Fenderbender  |  Monday, 06 July 2009 17:36  |  Add Comment (1) PDF Print E-mail
(1 reader vote)

Hi Folks, here is a tip for those of you who use light strings. Depending on the guitar many will break lighter strings (1st and 2nd) after relatively short life. Here is what you can do next time you change strings or a string, this method is usually only needed for 1st & 2nd.

Get a fairly thin piece of electrical wire rubber or plastic sheathed and cut about 3" off remove the wire from inside effectively leaving you with a thin plastic tube. Thread the new string through the plastic tube down to the ferrule and start your normal fit routine just pulling the string through without fitting it then adjust the size anywhere prior to the bridge. Mark the tube with a pencil or whatever then remove the string, cut the tube to length, refit it over the string down to the ferrule and string up as normal. If the strings are bottom fed they often travel over relatively sharp edges prior to the bridge, this method of course cushions the string over those areas so that they do not break as easily as those without this protection.

Just to give you a laugh, when I was a young guitarist about 16 I didn't have much money and would have to make strings last as long as possible, therefore when they started losing their tonal quality I would remove them and put them in boiling water which removed all the impurities that had imbedded in the strings. This was a common practice back then especially with expensive Bass strings.

Hope the above tip will prolong your strings for you.

Regards Fenderbender


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fredm
Nice one Fenderbender. Yep, you had to be creative and inventive in the old days if money was scarce. :-)
fredm , August 05, 2009

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