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Thread: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

  1. #1
    Registered User belbein's Avatar
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    Default Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    I'm just about the point (probably Sunday) that I'm going to string my Frankenstein "in the white." Mostly I'm doing it to make sure that this time the neck joint works ... I don't want to spend all the time finishing if the neck joint fails. But all that means that I'm going to have to put a set of strings on it. I hate to waste a perfectly good strings on an instrument on an in-the-white stringing up and then have to replace them when/if the neck survives.

    So ... is there something I can do to make sure that I can salvage and reuse them?
    belbein

    The bad news is that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. The good news is that what kills us makes it no longer our problem

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    Default Re: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    yes, there is. Leave extra windings around the tuning post. Later, you can cut the "kink" off and start over. I buy strings from Webstrings or something like that for the equivalent J74's gauge-wise and they cost less than $5 a set. I consider them sacrificial because when stringing up in the white and doing all the adjustments, you're bring the strings up and down and up and down in tension. The strings are pretty fatigued by the time the setup is right so I just pitch them when I strip the instrument back down.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    If you do so it would be wise to get some single E strings. They are prone to break after not very many times being taken on and off. The others usually fare ok.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    E- strings. I recently revived an ancient guitar-zither, mostly to put it on a wall. There are a lot of strings, with of course, the thin ones lasting least. On Ebay, I found sources of short rolls of so-called music wire to make my own. Any gauge you’d like. Not a solution for the wound strings, but now I can break an E anytime I want. The loop end is pretty easy to fabricate neatly. Of course, such wire does not have the implied magic virtues of name-brand stuff. Doesn’t worry me; I have many other things to which I can ascribe undemonstrated virtues.

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    Registered User j. condino's Avatar
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    Default Re: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    If you are stringing it up for a tension check on the neck joint, no problem. If you are stringing it up in the white as part of the continued voicing process, I'd want the best strings possible.

    Be wary of all the Chinese fake string sets being sold on ebay and all over the web these days. D'Addario has a mention of how to spot them on their website.
    www.condino.com

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  6. #6

    Default Re: Can I reuse strings I use for "in the white" stringup?

    Quote Originally Posted by j. condino View Post
    If you are stringing it up for a tension check on the neck joint, no problem. If you are stringing it up in the white as part of the continued voicing process, I'd want the best strings possible.

    Be wary of all the Chinese fake string sets being sold on ebay and all over the web these days. D'Addario has a mention of how to spot them on their website.
    I bought some violin strings. The key word for better is ‘synthetic’ as in the core is some fiber. They weren’t! The usage wasn’t important or critical, just getting strings on, but I tried them out. To my very uncritical, unmusical ears, they were impossibly bad. Steel wire cores. I read often in this forum that low-end mandolins generally come with very poor strings, and I believe it. It’s the middle-price ones that come with no half-decent setup that’s surprising!

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