High E string keeps unwinding on ball end!

[JSanta]

I have only had this happen on rare occasions, and I found it to be burrs on the saddles.  I have only used Ernie Ball strings the past 5 years or so, and I've only rarely encountered any problems.  There was one set of strings that all of the wound strings completely unravelled after about and hour of play.  It made me feel like a man haha, but I digress.  Obviously doing what Alex said greatly decreases the chances of string breakage at the ball-end.  When I played live before I joined the military, I did this when I had long sets to play.


/jim

Miss Wormwood:  What State do you live in?
Calvin: Denial.
Miss Wormwood: I don't suppose I can argue with that...

[doombilly]

quote:Originally posted by Paul Marossy

I have been using D'Addario strings exclusively for at least the last ten years and I have never had that problem. That's just strange...

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Not so strange. Obviously some batches just stink. I stopped using the brand after going through about a dozen high E's. 9gauges. The ones I examined were really poorly wrapped. I think I had been using D'Addarios exclusively since about 1993 or so.

http://myspace.com/illicitizen

[Paul Marossy]

Well, I still have yet to run across a bad set of D'Addarios. [^]

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[Paul Marossy]

Or a small round file would also do the trick. It doesn't take much of a burr to break those skinny little high E strings. []

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[mountaindewaddict]

quote:Originally posted by laughinglarry

Weird.  I've never seen a string unravel.  (Thank you Ernie Ball!)
Larry

Ditto for me!  I'm an Ernie Ball guy too.  []

Casey

Gear:
Parker P-44, Digitech GNX4, other stuff...
"Remember, if at first you don't succeed, you're doing it wrong."
God Bless!

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

It happened to me once AFAICR on my Fly and it was a D'Addario string.
My vote goes to the "bad batch" theory.

[Darter]

Twice this week--

Ernie Ball .08

I'd thought about solder but was concerned it would weaken the string.

I wrapped the ball with paper from the string package and it has held so far.

I think Alex has the right idea. boring the hole is my next move.

D

[908ssp]

Soldering doesn't seem to hurt the string it has been done for years I mean I remember doing it nearly 30 years ago I can't remember any solder related failures.

Alex

[plan-x]

What I do is thread the string thru the barrel, create a loop, thread it again thru the loop and you've got a knot. Mine don't unravel anymore. This adds about 30 sec. to a string change.

John....plan-x

[MFenkner]

quote:Originally posted by Paul Marossy

I have been using D'Addario strings exclusively for at least the last ten years and I have never had that problem. That's just strange...

Ditto for me; I've never had the problem on any of my Flys.  I typically buy .10s but that shouldn't make a huge difference.

[VHDon]

This just happened to me as well.....I've had my Fly Mojo about two months now, and I've exclusively used D'addario strings for about 12 years on a variety of guitars (Music Man, Gibson, Ibanez, PRS), and this is the first time this has ever happened.

[mongoose_eyeball]

quote:Originally posted by plan-x

What I do is thread the string thru the barrel, create a loop, thread it again thru the loop and you've got a knot. Mine don't unravel anymore. This adds about 30 sec. to a string change.

John....plan-x

That's a good idea--I'm tired of carrying around extra e strings all the time.

I love my Parker (as do we all), but I don't see how anybody who's had it happen more than once could blame it on a bad batch of strings. I've owned 40 or 50 electric guitars since 1968, and my '98 Fly is the only guitar it's ever happened to. Oh sure, I've broken plenty of E strings, but only the Fly has unwound them from the ball. When I put on a new set, it's the only string I don't stretch now, because I've discovered the chances of a ball unwind are vastly increased when I stretch the string on installation.

I can always tell when it's about to happen, too; my e starts going flat every 20 seconds or so. When that happens onstage, I call my tech over and just say "the E!" and he knows exactly what I'm talking about--he grabs an e from my bag of 20 extra e strings, and if the guitar makes it through the whole song, hands me my backup and changes the string during the next song.

It's probably happened 30 times in the five years I've owned the guitar, and I've tried D'Darrio, Dean Markely (Blue Steels), SIT's, GHS Boomers, Elixers, those "Trailer Trash" strings (can't remember the brand, but each pack features a characiture of a goofy, buck-toothed redneck), Ernie Balls, Carvins, Darcos, Snarling Dogs, D'Aquistos, John Pearse, and even Snake Oils (Snake Oil is a great-sounding string, by the way). The only brand I've ever tried that it didn't happen to is DR, but that's probably because I've only used those once (a set of Lo-Riders).I've used both 9's and 10's, tuned at concert pitch and tuned a half-step down.

So let's see... in 40 years of playing, it's happened to only one guitar, and it's happened over and over on that guitar despite bi-weekly string changes using a 15 or 16-brand manufacturer pool. Anybody wanna tell me I just coincidentally happened to get 30 bad batches from 15 different manufacturers, and all of them just happened to be on this one brand of guitar (of the four I currently play live)?

[plan-x]

quote:Originally posted by plan-x

What I do is thread the string thru the barrel, create a loop, thread it again thru the loop and you've got a knot. Mine don't unravel anymore. This adds about 30 sec. to a string change.

John....plan-x

Guaranteed, This will work.

Edit:
Oh, I checked, I posted this before on 12/6/2006. Make a sticky.[]
John....plan-x

[cgarlie]

Thanks for the tip. This actually happened to me the other evening -- couldn't believe it -- never broken a string in that way before. Anyone figured out how the Parker bridge does this?

Thanks again,
Charlie


Parker Deluxe w/ RMC
Gibson '83 Lucille
Gibson Digital Les Paul (HD-6X)
SRV Custom Strat
"Claptonized" 60th Anniversary Strat
PRS SAS
(Original) Dan Armstrong "See-through"
Burns Shadows Custom

[908ssp]

If someone is still having this trouble on a regular basis they should try putting a drop of super glue on the twisted part of the high E string. IF that worked it should would be a simple fix.

Unless someone does some experiments reenacting the stresses on the string and can see the circumstances and reliably predict the needed variables any explanation is speculation and guess work. Mine included.[]

Here is a guess. In an earlier discussion we talked about the string breaking on the edge of the hole inside the trem and a couple people have noted that they rounded the edge off and it seemed to help. So is it possible that the hole is squeezing the wires together making them run parallel and this reduced angle allows the wires to unwrap? If the wires aren't pushed together the angle  is greater and the stress tightens the wrap. The top drawing would be the good one as angle of the wires is greater the bottom drawing shows the bridge forcing the wires together making the angle smaller.



Alex