Double Bass String Winding On Tuning Machine & Scale Length

[gypsydjango]

Your thoughts on winding metal strings onto metal machine tuners:
I believe that the coloured wrap should wrap around the tuner. If the metal part of the string is wrapped around the tuner the string could break? Your thoughts on this.
(I have done a search on this and no results).

Scale length of a double bass: My double bass has a scale length of 43". Is that regarded as 3/4 or 4/4 bass? I believe that the average scale length of a 3/4 bass is 41 and a 1/2 inches--am I correct in thinking that?

 

[DoubleMIDI]

A string with a steel core won't break. Theoretically an outer metal winding can break, but this hardly happens at all.
Breaking of a string means breaking of the core as it holds the full tension.

A metal winding can cut into the core if the core is of a softer material. It depends on the structure of the core and the material.

A monofiber synthetic core has the biggest risk of breaking as a thin scratch of the core can easily let the string break, specially if under high bending tension as when wound onto the peg.
Multifiber cores can partially get cut by the sharp edges of a metal winding and that can lead to a broken string too, but that happens a lot less than with a monofiber core.
A silk layer between core and flatwire winding can help to delay a break, but once the silk is cut the core can get cut as well.
If the most inner winding is by a round wire that risk is mostly gone. But for the higher strings (like the G) only one metal layer might be possible which is often a flatwire.
It can happen with gut cores too, but synthetic cores are a lot more sensible to get cut by a sharp edge of a flatwire.

The tube over the strap of Velvet strings (maybe also on Gensslers, he invented the Velvet strings) at the end of the wound part (specially the flatwire inox wound Compas 180 and Classico) can lead to a hard kink when wound onto the peg, so this should be avoided at all cost. The hard bending at the kink cuts easily into the string and weakens the breaking force.
After having one broken string because of that I remounted the tailpiece end and lifted the string over the nut until the tube could fall behind the nut. Only needed to do that for the first or first two pegs.

The only occasion where I broke a metal core string was a high C with a very thin core (Super Sensitive Supreme, now discontinued) and a very old Spirocore that got clamped between the neighbor winding and the pegbox.

 

[Francois Blais]

Scale length of a double bass: My double bass has a scale length of 43". Is that regarded as 3/4 or 4/4 bass? I believe that the average scale length of a 3/4 bass is 41 and a 1/2 inches--am I correct in thinking that?

Right, it's a full scale (4/4).
110cm. scale.

 

[AGCurry]

Your thoughts on winding metal strings onto metal machine tuners:
I believe that the coloured wrap should wrap around the tuner. If the metal part of the string is wrapped around the tuner the string could break? Your thoughts on this.
(I have done a search on this and no results).

Every string I can think of, part of the unsilked length will wrap around the tuner. There is nothing we can do to change that. My conclusion is that the string is built to survive that condition, and I don't worry about it.