D'Addario Flatwounds - audacious escape attempt

[Ron McMillan]

Living as I do a l-o-n-g way from any source of mandolin strings, let alone a source of my preferred brands, I depend upon friends buying and bringing multiple sets from abroad. So I don't change strings unless I have to, and when I do, I take considerable care not to break one while tuning up.

I was looking forward to experiencing D'Addario EFW74 Flatwounds for the first time on my most expensive instrument. The installation went swimmingly until I was uncoiling the A strings, which flew apart and made a break for freedom. I wasn't too concerned until I realised both of them had flown straight out a window I'd never even opened before (it's a new house) - and fallen thirty feet to a rock garden one floor down.

With all the dogged parsimony that comes with being Scottish, I finally tracked them down - not an easy task. They could run but they couldn't hide. Spirited souls, these EFW74s.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Ron - Put your foot on the critters the next time,bolt all doors & close all windows !!. ''Escaping mando.strings'' is something nobody should have to suffer from,
Ivan

[Ron McMillan]

When it finally dawned on me that the miscreants hadn't bounced back off a closed window, but had made it all the way to the garden below, stress factors were high.

[Paul Busman]

With Thailand's climate and mosquitoes, I'd think you'd have window screens. Keeps bugs out, strings in.

[Ron McMillan]

With Thailand's climate and mosquitoes, I'd think you'd have window screens. Keeps bugs out, strings in.

This is the only window without insect screens; during the day there are no mosquitoes, and today the weather was unusually cool (mid-20s Celsius, so around mid-70s Fahrenheit), so I thought it was a good idea to open the window. Lesson learned!

[John Kelly]

Ron, as a fellow Scot, I can well appreciate your anxiety when the strinds went AWOL. A couple of days ago I got a package with ten individual tuners for a new instrument I am going to build and on opening it to examine the contents I dropped one of the tiny fixing screws. Cue lying flat on the floor and shining LED torch around to find it. Not so much for cost but for the fact they are not readily available as extras. I found it under the computer table!

[Ivan Kelsall]

John - It's amazing where things that we'd expect to have fallen 'vertically',actually end up !!!. I remember when i first started playing mandolin,i used to practice whilst sitting on my living room sofa. I could hardly hold a pick & i remember dropping it & when i came to look for it - gone !!. I eventually did find it under the sofa,but there was hardly a 1/2" gap underneath ?. How in hades did i get there ?. Stood on it's edge,the pick was higher than the gap under the sofa - picks falling & sliding sideways ????
I've never figured it out,
Ivan

[Ray(T)]

It's actually worse when you find something you dropped some time ago and you can't, for the life of you, remember what it came from.

[Ron McMillan]

It's actually worse when you find something you dropped some time ago and you can't, for the life of you, remember what it came from.

The gearbox mechanic's worst nightmare.

I've since installed a set of DR strings, whose envelopes have the following helpful warning:

Strings may 'spring' open when removing them from the envelope. Keep away from face and eyes when removing from package and while installing.

Helpful, but no mention of open windows.

[tomttomttomt]

Ron, I always have extra strings if you need 'em.... in Pattaya...
John, can you look under your computer table and see if my missing screw is there.
Ivan, While cleaning today I found a pick under my couch I believe is yours...

[Ron McMillan]

Ron, I always have extra strings if you need 'em.... in Pattaya...

Thanks, Tom. I'm almost never down your way, so if you happen to be heading for Chiang Mai, give me a shout.

ron

[John Kelly]

Ron, I always have extra strings if you need 'em.... in Pattaya...
John, can you look under your computer table and see if my missing screw is there.
Ivan, While cleaning today I found a pick under my couch I believe is yours...

Tom, no luck with the tiny screw, but a couple of plectrums and believe it or not they are not Ivan's. Oh, and loads of dust and other detritus!

[Ivan Kelsall]

From Ray - "It's actually worse when you find something you dropped some time ago and you can't, for the life of you, remember what it came from."

Ray - I had something similar happen a few days ago. Brushing up the bits of detritus around my 2 cats' food bowls,i found a metal 'object' that i'd never seen before !!. ''What the /where the...'' - you know, the usual thoughts. I put it on the kitchen work surface & later on asked my wife about it - it turned out to be from one of her ''E-cigarettes''.

This is begining to stray into the realms of an old thread from a few years back, regarding wire coat hangers / objects found under the bed ,alternative dimensions & putting things 'somewhere safe' - never to see them again !!!. I'm still looking for a set of 36 photo.colour slides of ''Country Gazette'' when they played at the UK Cambridge Folk Festival many years back. I found them after years of them being in 'a place' - so i put them 'somewhere safe',meaning to have them transferred onto a CD so that i could store them on my PC - 4 years + later,i haven't been able to find them ??,
Ivan

[Jess L.]

It's actually worse when you find something you dropped some time ago and you can't, for the life of you, remember what it came from.

The gearbox mechanic's worst nightmare. ...

Or when you *think* you've found an item that someone else dropped while they were standing around talking and 'helping' while you were working on something, so you quit looking for the item.

Only to discover later that the item you found was *not* the lost item after all, but a lookalike item. You realize this when you try to start up the engine and hear a loud horrifying sound followed by sudden engine stop, what the [bleep] was *that*...

The lost item, the one you'd both spent a long time searching for and thought you'd found it but hadn't, had actually fallen down inside the engine. Result in this instance: cracked block. Doesn't take much - a nut falling into a cylinder, when the piston comes back up, there isn't room for the unauthorized object so something's gotta give...

Amazing what "one little mistake" can do. "Too many cooks spoil the soup", as the old saying goes.

(No, it wasn't me, I wasn't even there that day. Although that's the kind of thing I'd be apt to do if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing, or distracted by 'help' which sometimes just generates more problems than what you had to start with.)

... the A strings, which flew apart and made a break for freedom. I wasn't too concerned until I realised both of them had flown straight out a window I'd never even opened before (it's a new house) - and fallen thirty feet to a rock garden one floor down.

With all the dogged parsimony that comes with being Scottish, I finally tracked them down - not an easy task. They could run but they couldn't hide. Spirited souls, these EFW74s.

That was funny! Thanks! Glad you found them.

[UsuallyPickin]

I have had them escape behind my set up table but never out a window. I would hunt them down as well. Great story thanks for sharing. R/

[Ray(T)]

This is getting SILLY..........

Talk about a cat feeding bowl (Ivan) - When he first arrived he would pick up all manner of ferrous detritus with his magnetic collar. 14+ years later, I think he's cleared the garden of such things. He does like cut-off string ends though.

[V70416]

If I remember correctly,the A-string on these sets is wound. When I tried them I found that because the
A-strings are wound,the core has to be very thin. Even thinner than the unwound E-string?

I think these are the sets on which I had problems with the A-strings breaking very easily(like when first stringing them up).

It would be prudent to buy a few extra of the wound A-strings and treat them gently. Also,make sure your string post holes,
nut,and tailpiece hooks are nice and rounded smooth.

[pheffernan]

If I remember correctly,the A-string on these sets is wound.

I believe the A-string is wound on the flattop (not flatwound) set from D'Addario.

[Ron McMillan]

I believe the A-string is wound on the flattop (not flatwound) set from D'Addario.

I think you are right. The A on this set of EFW74s is not wound.