I love these strings. They feel great,play great and sound great. I have one problem. I break them. I use round wound 12's with wound G. I play alot of blues. I have broken three wound G strings this week. Not all on the same guitar but on three different guitars. Just wondering if this is a common problem or am I just hard on strings and maybe need to man up and get 13's. My fingers hurt just thinking about it. What's the deal?
Daddario Chromes Breaking.
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Feb 6, 2010 2:43 a.m. Unclegrumpy:
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Feb 6, 2010 2:48 a.m. Unclegrumpy:
Also, all three sets are only about a month old. I do play about ten to twenty hours a week. But still.
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Feb 6, 2010 4:30 a.m. jameslynch:
I think the wound G has a tendency to break. It's usually getting the brunt of your bending too.
I had a similar problem when I first switched over to them. At the moment I use a hybrid, the E, A and D are from a set of chromes (11's) and the G, B and E are from a standard round wound set of 11's. The UNwound G seems to break less and is WAY easier to bend. Maybe you can find a heavy enough Unwound G to match your 12's.... see if it makes any difference.
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Feb 6, 2010 5:01 a.m. Hofner59:
Do they always go at the same point - i.e. is there a burr or sharp edge on the bridge (especially if it's a tune-o-matic)?
The wound G in a set of Chromes 12s is listed as a 24-gauge, coming in at 30lbs tension.
D'Addario do an EXL145 set - roundwound 12s with a plain G, at 20 gauge, which is at 22.9lbs - quite a bit lighter than your wound G.
You can get heavier plain ones though - according to their string tension chart, a 22-gauge is 27.7lbs pitched to G, a 24-gauge is 33lbs.
Seems like a plain 22 might be a good bet, and slightly easier on the bending.
Hats off though for using man's strings anyway!
H59
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Feb 6, 2010 12:16 p.m. Unclegrumpy:
I think jameslynch may be right. The strings tend to break between the nut and the peg. I thought about it and the G does seem to take most of the bending. I will give these another go and see what happens. Maybe I need to rotate my guitars more so to give the strings a break. I dunno, I'll figure something out. Thanks for the ideas.
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Feb 6, 2010 12:31 p.m. The Norm:
The strings tend to break between the nut and the peg..."
I'd reexamine where they break and see if maybe the nut is cutting them somehow. Strings that tend to break at the same place usually do so for a reason.
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Feb 6, 2010 12:39 p.m. Unclegrumpy:
Could be. Since I changed to the heavier strings maybe the nut needs to be filed. Could be a binding issue.
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Feb 6, 2010 2:18 p.m. Pappy:
I had this problem on my Tele. Turned out that my string tree got twisted a bit and as I would tighten the string, the tree would cut it. Most annoying problem I've ever faced until I figured it out.
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Feb 6, 2010 2:29 p.m. afm_380:
I've found that Chromes tend to break a lot at the peg when de-tuning. They appear to be much more brittle and fatigue prematurely. I really like Chromes otherwise.
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Feb 6, 2010 2:36 p.m. BillyZoom:
Who bends a wound G?
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Feb 6, 2010 3:11 p.m. nielDa:
I had the same thought as Norm - is the nut slot filed for an unwound G ?
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Feb 6, 2010 4:10 p.m. Bear:
BillyZoom said: Who bends a wound G?
I do all of the time, but I've always played with heavier strings so I guess i've up the strength in my fingers. The wound third I use is a Thomastic-Infeld .019 flatwound. -
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Feb 6, 2010 4:54 p.m. Hermitt:
I bend a .020 Thomastik flatwound (George Benson GB112)
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Feb 6, 2010 8:27 p.m. Unclegrumpy:
The plain ones I have tried are just too slinky for me, kinda like bending a rubber band.
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Feb 6, 2010 9:00 p.m. Proteus:
It's not proper or fittin' to bend a flatwound G. Plain, sure, if you want.
Flatwounds are made for slurs.
Geez, you guys.
(This was intended to be a smartass post, not a helpful one.)
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Feb 6, 2010 9:20 p.m. Hermitt:
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Feb 6, 2010 9:26 p.m. bonedaddy:
Meh, wound G is overrated. I play 9's. My tone is immense
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Feb 6, 2010 10:08 p.m. CnW:
D'Add Chromes work great with a couple of my guitars. I've got 12's on my main gigging guitar with a 22 plain G. It's always the D that breaks first on that one.
Wound D and G strings have a small enough core that they can be a bit delicate if you're bending them much. It's the nature of the beast.
I asked the owner of a local shop if he had any individual unwound 20's or 22's. While he was digging through his string box he asked me if I was going to use them to cut cheese. I guess it was an unusual request?
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Feb 7, 2010 11:03 a.m. Proteus:
In the music store, we were sometimes asked for the heaviest possible plain strings by guys who used them to cut through the rubbery goo to get windshields out of cars.
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Feb 7, 2010 11:20 a.m. chrisp:
Grump:
Some guys are also just hard on strings. It is of course very possible that there is a specific problem with your guitar(s), but some guys are just really really hard on strings.
I have been through one guy's guitar a good 7 or 8 times. Even kept it to play absurdly hard on for a week.
I can not get his .010 to .046 strings to break (I usually flail away on .012 to .050). But he still breaks 'em regularly.
It is way out of line to web-diagnose here, but for that guy - lightening up, very much, is the solution.
I know guys use 'em, but a plain G over about .019 is a tough thing. A wound G under .020 is a fragile thing.
All wound strings are NOT the same balance of core to winding size. So a wound .020 will be different in core strength (and tension) from one maker to the next.
A fatter core will help. AND a fatter core can let you sneak up to a .022 with likely no odd tension imbalance.
Anyway, I suggest trying other makers' wound G's in your setup.
juststrings.com carries a large number of single strings that you could try.
All in my opinion - other opinions may be more useful.
Oh, and don't buy any crap about bad Swedish steel vs. good racially-pure (as Jimmy Carter would say) steel from elsewhere.
Now Swedish meatballs are another story,...
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Feb 7, 2010 2:36 p.m. Unclegrumpy:
I like swedish meatballs. Maybe I'll try a heavier plain G. I do have an ancient box of black diamond strings. I could also go next door and steal some strings from my friends piano.
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Feb 7, 2010 9:39 p.m. K-Wad:
I've never broken a set of Chromes. However, I have had a few sets where the ribbon overlay on the low E were loose right out of the package (made a great sitar sound
).
I like D'Addario's round wounds, but their flats never did it for me.
