Stupid Question

[WilliamSandoval]

Do Elixirs have silk on the ends of their strings? It's gotten to the point where I can't stand silk on my strings anymore. It just gets caught in the string guide and puts unnecessary tension between the string guide and the tuning machines for the D and G. Any other non-silk wrapped string just slides right through the string guide. Smooth as butter.

[Luckydog]

Elixirs have no sik. But tension? Not that I have noticed. What I hate about silk is how ratty it gets after awhile.

[WilliamSandoval]

That too, and thanks for the answer. But the silk gets caught up on the edge of the string guide, and it can't easily get past. Part of it has to to do with the windings getting stuck too, you know what I mean?

[Luckydog]

Do you mean when you bring them up to tension the silk gets stuck and ripped on the edge of the string tree? Yeah i agree if thats what you mean. You can push the string down there as you tighten, but it still eventually gets ratty.

[WilliamSandoval]

More or less...

I'm more worried about the spaced out windings underneath the silk breaking. That's the part that gets stuck. I'll try and make a diagram:

-\-----\----\---\--\--\--\-\-\-\\\\\\\\|nut|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|Bridge|

The majority of the string's windings are close together until you get to the silk wrapping, then the winding gets further apart, so if that winding breaks, then the only thing left is the core which won't grip the post at all.

The spaced out winding gets caught on the tree, and makes the part of the string between the tree and the bridge have noticeably less tension than the part of the string that's between the tree and the tuning machines.

It's not that big of a deal, but it gets annoying sometimes. It's really only noticeable when I change strings.

The set of Hartke strings that came with my bass had tight windings on the entire string and it just slid right through the tree without a problem.

[SLaPiNFuNK]

The silk also protects your hardware from being scratched by the strings.

There are other coated strings available that do not have windings that space out like that. DR K3 coated is one of them for example... their windings are close together (but taper on the tuners (taper = less winding / thickness)) for the full length of the string.

If you are not into colors, they have "Silver Stars" available as well..

The closer windings will slide smoother under your guide.