Boiling Upright strings?

[kamakiriad7]

Ok, so my upright strings are toast - very toast. And I'm not in the financial position right now to drop $100+ on a new set.

Since boiling works on electric strings, do any of you recommend boiling acoustics? I haven't got much to lose, the bass is a loaner anyways, and if they explode I'll just be without strings for a month.

thanks for any and all help!

[Marcus Johnson]

I've only done it with Spirocores, as an experiment. You wouldn't want to do it with hybrids... or guts, unless you're trying to make soup stock.

The one time I did it was with an absolutely flat-dead set of Spiro Weichs, and it brought back the high frequencies a bit, for a very short period (a week, tops). I wouldn't waste my time with it again, but if you want to try it, use clothespins to keep the windings on the ends out of the water, or they'll come apart.

[kamakiriad7]

Awesome, thanks so much. I'm going to get on that right away. Now if only I can figure out how to keep the soundpost in place while the strings are off...

[Darkstrike]

You could tape around the posts with that light masking tape, so you'll know where the posts should be when you want to put the strings back on.

[Gearhead43]

I like mine with browned butter, parmesan and garlic, maybe a touch of oregano.

[Phil Rowan]

Originally Posted by kamakiriad7

Awesome, thanks so much. I'm going to get on that right away. Now if only I can figure out how to keep the soundpost in place while the strings are off...

Do one or two at a time. If you do two, just lay the bass on it's back while there are only 2 strings on there. If you want to do them all at once, a 15 lb dumbell laid on the bridge area is (ie, soundpost) of the top while the bass is on its back would work too (at least IME it did.. put a towel on the bass so as not to scratch it).

[KsToaDangr]

Originally Posted by Gearhead43

I like mine with browned butter, parmesan and garlic, maybe a touch of oregano.

No thyme? How about basil? Maybe sprinkle some feta on top?

[JoeyNaeger]

From what I've read on the other side of the forum, boiling strings isn't really that great an idea on EB strings as well. The recommended solution was to dip the string in denatured alcohol for several hours to get all the grime off. IIRC, boiling lead to corrosion and made the string degrade much faster actually.

[dchan]

If you can't drop $100 bucks on strings, why not just buy some used strings from the "For Sale: amps and accessories" section? You can get a great deal, and the strings will probably already be broken in for you.