Maybe I just overtightened it - that's what I'm leaning towards.
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Today's Lesson: Don't Boil Cheap Strings...
- Thread starter Squid-TEGH
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Yes, that is exactly what happened, nothing more nothing less...
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I have had much better luck with denatured alcohol overnight. Boiling never worked out for me.
It's all a learning experience. Until I had all four strings on I was convinced I was screwing my bass up badly.
Now, it's almost in tune again
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Now, it's almost in tune again
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Well to be honest I'm not 100% sure. But I used to boil my strings often back in the 80s and string breakage while putting them back on afterwards was common.
Sometimes I attempted to boil the same set numerous times.
It might simply be just removing and putting them back on, but I always assumed corrosion might be a factor.
Strings were expensive for me as a teenager. I was in a small town and there wasn't a lot of job opportunities. No support from my parents either. My dad would laugh if I broke a string and say "Good. Maybe you can find a quieter way to waste your life now."
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Sad, but sorry I had to LOL.
You remember that tv show... House?
If Dr. House was actually about a mechanic / welder / machinist I would swear they had based the character on my Dad. He had no shortage of funny yet soul crushing witty comebacks.
The secret is to sprinkle some shredded parmesan over them before you bake them.
Who told you to bake them?
Who told you to bake them?
- Oct 7, 2000
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- Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
Please explain how strings are made. I'm serious, I don't know.
I do know I've taken strings off and put them back on lots of times, and never broke one. And the only time I ever did break one was also the only time I ever boiled them. Coincidence? Maybe, but I really don't think so.
Heating, and or/boiling things changes their molecular structure. I don't know what keeps a string wound (hence my first question), but it seems like common sense boiling the string it will mess with that in one way or another. Metal contracts and expands.
No, it doesn't.
You would literally have to vaporize the steel in those strings to change the molecular structure.
Even the water that boils is still in the same molecular structure, but it just changes form when it turns to steam. They're the same molecules, but just expanded.
Boiling shouldn't change the physical properties of the steel. You would have to get them molten hot for that to happen.
- Oct 7, 2000
- 18,619
- 38,941
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
Well it sounded good for a guy who got a 75 in Earth Science, and never took Chemistry.
I used to work in a refinery & we definitely changed the molecular structure of crude oil, but it takes catalysts & stuff to make some of those petrochemicals that come out of there. Simply boiling something just changes it's phase.
It could possibly affect the brittleness for some materials, but not steel.
It could possibly affect the brittleness for some materials, but not steel.
Nickel is very resistant to rust and is the primary element added to
steel to make it "stainless steel"
steel to make it "stainless steel"
