Did I ruin my string?

[atomicbass]

Greetings,

I love this forum, and have been browsing string threads lately.

In the last couple of days, I have installed 4 new strings on my double bass. I am an "advanced amateur" orchestral player who teaches elementary DB in my home studio. I have a 2004 Shen and love it.

After 5 years of playing on the same strings (Belcantos on G/D, and Helicores on A/E), I decided to "treat myself" to new strings! Decided to install them myself, since I have no problem installing my son's violin strings!

Installed the G string first, a Corelli 370F. Way too bright for me, but I'll give it a couple weeks.

Then I put an Evah Pirazzi Weich on my E and I am loving that!!

Today I replaced the D string with Dominant Solo, and A with Belcanto Solo. So far I like both of those strings. However, I found it much more difficult to install them...had to wind/unwind from the tuning gears a couple of times. After doing that, the silks on those 2 strings started to come apart, exposing part of the inner wire and core! However, the string length from nut to bridge is just fine...but did I ruin those 2 strings? Has anyone else ever done this? (I feel pretty silly right now...but just wanted to try out some new strings, before settling in on a set of 4 of the same type.)

Thanks for your input!

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

No, you should be fine. I've had ancient Spirocores with no silk at all left on the pegbox end that tuned to pitch and played just fine for many months on end.

[Tommy el Gato]

I'm a little bit concerned about that Dominant. Some people/basses have had breakage issues with them (might just be the orchestra tuning version) even when they've taken every possible precaution. But, the upside to that is that thomastik's customer support is pretty good and if you do break it, they'll replace it for you.

Otherwise, it's pretty common for peg-end silks to look pretty gnarly.

[eerbrev]

I think you're probably fine. Just make sure that you don't wrap any of the metal wrap of the dominant over the peg. It's not a guaranteed break if you have this occur (I've got a dominant G string on which has the metal wrapped over the peg, but I laugh in the face of death) but it is a statistical likelihood. The metal wrap will bite into the synthetic core and break it.

If I'm reading what you've written correctly, what you're seeing is just the inner wraps of the string. Every bass string has several layers of inner wrap between the core and the outer winding so that they can play with the tension, density and thickness to get exactly what they want. The outer wrap is less flexible, so in the pegbox they remove it and replace it with the cloth wrapping to protect the inner wrap but keep the flexibility to allow the string to wrap around the peg

eerbrev

[Violen]

When the silk looks blown out you get street cred.

[atomicbass]

Thanks, guys! I feel a lot better now. Turns out the only string I "ruined" is the Belcanto solo....the Dominant solo looks fine (no core showing through the yellow silk), and there is no wire wrapping over the metal pegs on either. Guess I can take my bass out in public now!
:-)

[Ryanpet42]

Why are you using solo strings for the D and A?

[PaulCannon]

That's the weirdest string set-up I've ever heard of.

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

One thing I've learned is that changing just one string affects the way the others feel and respond. The bass adjusts.