Worn strings – some useless information
Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:09 pm
Yesterday, I decided to change the strings on one of my guitars. They were still sounding good but they had been on there for about a month and a half according to my guitar maintenance log book and really should have been changed three weeks ago. This guitar has been getting some heavy use lately because I have it tuned to Open G and have been experimenting with it almost daily. When I go to practice sessions with friends, I take it, along with one tuned to standard tuning, and it always gets used to play a song or two.
I keep my hands clean and use Dr. Stringfellow String Cleaner on my strings after every session (usually daily), so I rarely need to change them out due to them getting dull sounding. They always wear out before that. My signal that they are getting worn out is that the third string (G) gets serious flat spots worn right at the frets and when I slide my fingers up the string without pressing down, I feel "bumps" at the fret positions.
So, I put the guitar on the bench to change out the strings and decided to look a bit closer at these bumps. I pulled out my 10X loupe and got quite a surprise (WARNING – if you show any signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder relating to cleanliness, you might not want to do this, or you may never want to touch your guitar again!).
What I found was the bronze winding broken at the 7th and 9th frets and there was minor to serious distortion at most other frets up to the 15th fret (this guitar doesn’t have a cut-away, so I have little use of playing higher than that). When I looked at the fourth string (D), I saw some distortion, but no breaks. On the fifth and sixth strings (G and D in Open G tuning), there was no noticeable distortion, probably because the windings are much thicker.
Here are a couple of close-ups showing the damage:
Fourth string - break at 9th fret
Fourth string - break at 7th fret
Fourth string - distortion at 5th fret
After discovering this, I didn’t immediately restring the guitar, but I sat down and played it to see if this made any noticeable difference in tonal quality or playability. The verdict? Not much. To be honest, once I sat down and started playing, I got more into practicing and forgot what I was evaluating. After about two hours, I remembered . . . . “Oh, yeah. I was going to change these strings . . . “.
Conclusion: I won’t lose any sleep over this. These strings are about the cheapest that money can buy. For those string wonks that need to know, they are Martin 80/20 Bronze Light M140 at about $3.00 US per set when on sale. The fact that I see this damage in this amount of time means that I am getting to play quite often. That’s good! And here are some photos of just how insignificant this is:
Guitar pick for scale pointing out fourth string - break at 7th fret
The BIG picture
Damage like this doesn’t surprise me. I probably press down harder when fretting strings than I really need to and I’m doing more bends than ever before. And, when bronze windings meet nickel (or stainless?) frets . . . . . nickel wins! What I don’t understand is why they didn’t start unwrapping. I’ve seen others who had this happen where a quarter inch tag unwound before they realized what was going on.
Regardless, the world keeps turning . . . . and now you know why I put “useless information” in the subject line (but it was quite fun playing with the camera to get all the close-ups!).
Hydroman52
I keep my hands clean and use Dr. Stringfellow String Cleaner on my strings after every session (usually daily), so I rarely need to change them out due to them getting dull sounding. They always wear out before that. My signal that they are getting worn out is that the third string (G) gets serious flat spots worn right at the frets and when I slide my fingers up the string without pressing down, I feel "bumps" at the fret positions.
So, I put the guitar on the bench to change out the strings and decided to look a bit closer at these bumps. I pulled out my 10X loupe and got quite a surprise (WARNING – if you show any signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder relating to cleanliness, you might not want to do this, or you may never want to touch your guitar again!).
What I found was the bronze winding broken at the 7th and 9th frets and there was minor to serious distortion at most other frets up to the 15th fret (this guitar doesn’t have a cut-away, so I have little use of playing higher than that). When I looked at the fourth string (D), I saw some distortion, but no breaks. On the fifth and sixth strings (G and D in Open G tuning), there was no noticeable distortion, probably because the windings are much thicker.
Here are a couple of close-ups showing the damage:
Fourth string - break at 9th fret
Fourth string - break at 7th fret
Fourth string - distortion at 5th fret
After discovering this, I didn’t immediately restring the guitar, but I sat down and played it to see if this made any noticeable difference in tonal quality or playability. The verdict? Not much. To be honest, once I sat down and started playing, I got more into practicing and forgot what I was evaluating. After about two hours, I remembered . . . . “Oh, yeah. I was going to change these strings . . . “.
Conclusion: I won’t lose any sleep over this. These strings are about the cheapest that money can buy. For those string wonks that need to know, they are Martin 80/20 Bronze Light M140 at about $3.00 US per set when on sale. The fact that I see this damage in this amount of time means that I am getting to play quite often. That’s good! And here are some photos of just how insignificant this is:
Guitar pick for scale pointing out fourth string - break at 7th fret
The BIG picture
Damage like this doesn’t surprise me. I probably press down harder when fretting strings than I really need to and I’m doing more bends than ever before. And, when bronze windings meet nickel (or stainless?) frets . . . . . nickel wins! What I don’t understand is why they didn’t start unwrapping. I’ve seen others who had this happen where a quarter inch tag unwound before they realized what was going on.
Regardless, the world keeps turning . . . . and now you know why I put “useless information” in the subject line (but it was quite fun playing with the camera to get all the close-ups!).
Hydroman52