polish strings?

[azureblue]

not strings from Poland, but has anyone polished / smoothed a set of flats or half wounds? I have a set of D'ad Half wounds I'd like to put on my second bass, but I dislike the tackiness of the strings.. Ideas??
R

[SLaPiNFuNK]

The last step in the production process of flatwounds is usually polishing.

Halfrounds are ground down - D'Addario Half-Rounds are run through Zero Grinders and then packaged. They do not polish them after the grinding process as it is already hard enough to clean the lubricant from the strings in the grinding process.

Dean Markley had "Fret Masters" which are now discontinued strings... They were "Polished" over the fret area to achieve less finger noise.

D'Addario does currently have a guitar string set that is polished, but no bass set like that.

The new Steve Harris Rotosound flats are now ground and polished more than the other Rotosound Jazz Bass flats.

I have heard of users polishing their own half-rounds... You can always try... If it doesn't work, you may just be left with dead polished strings

[azureblue]

so what's good to polish my D'ad half wounds with? I can always boil them afterwards.....

[SLaPiNFuNK]

They are pure nickel...

I would start with a silver polish cloth... See how that goes... You know one of those cloths to polish silverware that has the polish built in?

[azureblue]

It looks to me like I would need something like very fine sandpaper or emery cloth to do it. At least I know to not use something that has metal in it. :-) It'd be great to get them to be as slick as my Fender 9050 flats, but, since the D'ad's have gaps between the windings, That won't happen.

[two fingers]

Meh. Just boil 'em.

Edit: Wait, you mean actually removing material?

[azureblue]

yeah, like with 1000 grit or something

[SLaPiNFuNK]

I do not know the spec's of the grinding machine they use, but I saw them when I was at their factory they are pretty wicked... very old! Problem with using sandpaper or something you may not be consistent, why I suggested a polish cloth...

[azureblue]

thanks - I'll see what kind of polish cloth I can find.. MAybe emery cloth is the answer...

[two fingers]

Wow. Seems like a lot of trouble to go to to keep around a set of strings. Why don't you just get some that don't feel like that? Maybe I'm missing something.

[azureblue]

Try finding a set of half wounds that have the finish of a flat, like the Fender flats..

[AwesomeWithAQ]

In my experience, the stickiness goes away as you break them in. A lubricant will also help the issue. I like to use Planet Waves XLR8.