Thomastic use Musical Wire Cr18Ni8 and DIY Strings, No Winding

[Mustafa Umut Sa]

I had been followed double bass course for a short time because of my bleeded finger tips and I very much loved Thomastic strings. I decided to learn the wire alloy and spent a night on scientific papers and patents. I learned they uses Cr18Ni8 alloy stainless steel wire which is cold drawn and known as traditional musical wire sold worldwide

The quality is important , because of cold drawing , there happens a martensinite hard layer at surface of wire and this should be minimal, the wire is austenitic.

Plan is to buy short reels of that wires and make my bass guitar strings without winding.

What should be the thicknesses ?

I have 1mm thick bronze wire for surbahar and no electric bass is equivalent.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sa]

Paslanmaz Yaylık Tel ve Fiyatları | Metal AVM

These 302 stainless spring wires have as same as thomastic cr18ni8 alloy.

As you see it , there are 0.4mm to 4mm wide selection.

1 kilograms of wire costs 5 dollars.

I want to know which thicknesses are good on for cello tuning and normal tuning without breaking 4 string fretless stagg bass.

I will not use winding but bare wire.!!!!

 

[Rabidhamster]

I wouldn’t do it and I’d recommend against anyone else doing it, but if you really do I want to see photos. And PLEASE wear eye protection when you do it. Spring wire turns into a flying fish hook when it breaks under tension.

But don’t worry if you think of this only because your fingers bleed from beginning, this won’t happen forever. Keep clean fresh strings that aren’t corroded, and your finger tips will toughen.


Finally if you could string a bass or cello with single wire then the string companies would have probably already started doing it in the last 100 years. Read up on why they use windings to begin with.

 

[Mustafa Umut Sa]

I wouldn’t do it and I’d recommend against anyone else doing it, but if you really do I want to see photos. And PLEASE wear eye protection when you do it. Spring wire turns into a flying fish hook when it breaks under tension.

But don’t worry if you think of this only because your fingers bleed from beginning, this won’t happen forever. Keep clean fresh strings that aren’t corroded, and your finger tips will toughen.


Finally if you could string a bass or cello with single wire then the string companies would have probably already started doing it in the last 100 years.

Look at 1000 years old rudra veena , sitar or later surbahar , bass guitar is a garbage can when comparing with these.

Thank you for warning , I will chose clavichord wire , iron , red brass or yellow brass or bronze wire. Any warning for them ?

 

[HaphAsSard]

I had been followed double bass course for a short time because of my bleeded finger tips and I very much loved Thomastic strings. I decided to learn the wire alloy and spent a night on scientific papers and patents. I learned they uses Cr18Ni8 alloy stainless steel wire which is cold drawn and known as traditional musical wire sold worldwide

The quality is important , because of cold drawing , there happens a martensinite hard layer at surface of wire and this should be minimal, the wire is austenitic.

Plan is to buy short reels of that wires and make my bass guitar strings without winding.

What should be the thicknesses ?

I have 1mm thick bronze wire for surbahar and no electric bass is equivalent.

Plain (unwound) metal strings become too stiff and inharmonic to work well as musical instrument strings past a certain diameter (unless the scale length becomes very long). That is why wound strings (which can achieve a large mass but retain flexibility) exist at all; I think .026" is the largest plain steel guitar gauge available. Regarding your 040 bronze string, I don't know the note to which it is tuned on the surbahar, but I'm pretty sure it is higher than the lowest notes of the bass guitar.