Jump to content

I snapped a guitar string while down tuning.


Count Chocula

Recommended Posts

  • Members

Funny, the same thing happened to me some time ago on a fairly new Gibson SG. I had to set it down and just back away :eek:

 

Just last week I got the courage to go back in and change out the strings. :thu:

 

 

It really was down for quite a while. :lol: But I often just set a guitar down and pick up another for a while. But that one actually did surprise me a bit since the strings hadn't had much playing time on them, but yeah, I'd been up and down tuning and I guess it just didn't like it when I tried to bring it back up. Finicky she was.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

^^^ I thought mine might have been caused by some bad Gibson mojo (there is good and bad you know) that caused me to go through a wrinkle in time and therefore tune up too far, but I swear I didn't do that. But of course, how would I have known.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Do you use locking tuners? I've found that this can happen with locking tuners because there's so little string wound around the peg that tuning down and back up can bend the string at the point where it passes into the hole in the peg. This back and forth bending weakens the string at that point and it snaps. I don't tune down, but this happened to me once when I was fine tuning the nut slots on a new nut I'd made. I'd been loosening the string to lift it from the slot, then tuning it back up to tension to check the action. After a few repetitions the G string snapped at the peg while I unwinding it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've broken a lot of strings while loosening the tension. I do a lot of repair/mod work which requires loosening and re-tightening the strings. After you've done that several times, good chance one of the strings will break... It's usually the high e, so I just keep some singles on hand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I did that once. I snapped the high E string because I started downtuning with the low strings first, which puts more pressure on the high strings. Since then, when I downtune more than two notes, I start with the high strings. Then, when I tune up to E standard again, I start with the low strings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...