More things about strings

[walfordr]

I have a piano downstairs that sounds great and hasn't had new strings for at least ten years. It gets tuned every 6 months and that's it.

 

I understand that the piano strings are not being continuously mauled about by my grubby fingers, but surely that doesn't explain the huge discrepancy with guitar strings which last for a few weeks.

 

Is it like lightbulbs where it's perfectly possible and not much more expensive to make them last almost forever, but not such a good business proposition for the manufacturers?

[Mike Sr.]

I don't think so. Depending on what I'm playing I can end up sawing through a set of strings fairly quick, and that's after making sure the sharpe edges are filed and sanded down. I love to bend and will break a string after several hours of play and usually it's not the same string.

To make a guitar string that will keep its tuning and tone forever without breaking sounds like a tall order.