Oh, God! That was funny... Yes, I realize how ridiculous it is; one thing, partly due to my back, I have a tendency to play with eyeballs inches off the fretboard. However, this is usually while playing. And yes, it most commonly breaks at the tuning peg....Tune from G, down to E, & then back up again... Rinse & repeat! Presto.
OK, moral debates over cruelty to strings aside, and since the string has already met its unfortunate end, let's dissect the issue, so to speak:
Do you use the near universal technique of somehow "locking" the string at the posthole, something like this? :
I think it's pretty self evident that this creates a kink at a point of high stress on the string, and as you're probably aware, a kink is weak point in any kind of wire.
It's kind of analogous to the knot in the modern hangman's noose being designed to ensure the neck breaks. :shocked:
Anyway, the metal at the kink has become stressed at close to, if not beyond, its
plasticity limit.
So it's gonna break with just a couple of repetitions of increase/decrease of tension, period, as you've noticed. (see "Deformation theory" in that plasticity link above)
I had the problem on Stringeater, my first cheapo flattop and wasn't even changing tuning, but doing a lot of fine tuning 'cause it had lousy intonation.
Partial fix: Use a single of the next gauge up that's used for that string.
(D'A and GHS offer the best range of singles to sub into sets that I know of. I still buy an .025 single to sub into their EJ16 set, and guess why? Because that's the way Guild offered that set when I got my D25 in '96, and up through close of Westerly at least, too)
And yes it was the G that always broke on Stringeater until I started using .025's, so when I discovered Guild also used that as the stock gauge in L350 sets, I said to myself "Aha! They
get it!", although a few years back I realized that it was actually one of those small details that contributed to overall string-to-string balance and offered that tiny extra bit of midrange "oomph".
Anyway, Stringeater still ate the G at the posthole and it was getting kind of costly for me in a time of marginal employment until I realized what I explained above: the kink is a point of weakness at a point of great stress.
So I developed the painstaking technique of winding the strings using only the winds of the string around the post to provide friction to maintain tension.
Involves tricky method of inserting string into posthole and keeping light tension on the length between fingers and saddle right while rotating peg with other hand.
You need to allow for enough length between right "tension" hand and the post hole to allow the string to wrap around at least one and a half times, and I even usually back off a bit and then manually bend the string where it's coming out of the post hole to help give it a gradual radius as opposed to a tight kink. You might wind up doing that a couple of times while getting it "right".
At this point:
what you would do is start turning the post while ensuring that end coming out at the right near the button doesn't get a kink. That's when you might back off a bit during the process to push some of the "free end" back into the hole to help create the "radius".
(It's a very small radius, you just want to avoid making a tight kink right at the edge of the posthole)
What's tricky and painstaking is that you may also need to adjust to make sure there's not so much wire on the "nut" side of the hole as to create more wraps than the post can hold.
Balanced with allowing enough length to
coming in from that side to ensure you have enough length to get enough wraps, too.
I also take pains to ensure the wraps don't overlap while winding around the post. 3-4 is ideal, but the E is a bit thick and might only have enough room on the post for about 2.
Anyway, when you're done, strings are held by pure friction and have a little room to "stretch" at the post hole rim.
No more snaps at the peg.
I think this also enhances fine tuning.
I've found it's easiest to do while sitting on a chair and propping the guitar between my legs, soundhole side out.
And I've gotten pretty quick at it since experimenting with different strings on the F65ce over the last year, but it still takes a good 1/2 hour start to finish, more when I take the opportunity to give 'er a good clean and polish, too.
However, if the break occurred at the saddle, well, capo or no capo, it’s just never pretty.
After taming (but never completely curing) Stringeater's voracious appetite for G strings, I was only too happy to have 'em break at the saddle after a fairly useful service life.
I could then thread the broken end through the ball and reinstall the same string pretty quickly which was very useful in the field at that busking stage of my life, and saved me from having to mix a brand new string into a 2/3 used set.
Fringe benefit of the "radius wrap" and coiling the loose end at the post instead of clipping: the peghead end of the sting was still long and strong enough to rewrap at a new starting point.
Once this process is mastered you're ready for Advanced String Theory 3.0
