Ball End vs. Plain End for Crossover

[partyofone]

I was wondering about everyone's thoughts about ball end vs. plain end strings.

I had to replace, in an emergency, a plain end with a ball end on my Taylor NS. The angle to the saddle from the hole is much higher than a tied string.

Does anyone use ball ends and do you like them? They sure beat tying knots.

Erik

[David Hilyard]

Originally Posted by partyofone

I was wondering about everyone's thoughts about ball end vs. plain end strings.

I had to replace, in an emergency, a plain end with a ball end on my Taylor NS. The angle to the saddle from the hole is much higher than a tied string.

Does anyone use ball ends and do you like them? They sure beat tying knots.

Erik

Ball ends aren't as common as plain ends and it used to be that ball end nylon strings were of lesser quality. That may not be the case now. I haven't used a ball end since the 1960's. Tying isn't hard. It's actually just looping and pinching the end against the tie block so it doesn't slip.

[patrickgm60]

Tying isn't hard. It's actually just looping and pinching the end against the tie block so it doesn't slip

Agreed. I can't see ball ends saving more than 1 minute of time, per string. Meanwhile, the stretching-to-hold-pitch process seems to take (for me) about a week...

[David Hilyard]

Yup! The stretching takes some time. There are lots of illustrations online that show how to tie on classical guitar strings. This first one has a 2 minute video on restringing a classical guitar, if you scroll to the bottom. It's just one way, but the video, I thought, is a great way to show it. The actual "tying" at the bridge took 22 seconds in the video.

http://www.start-playing-guitar.com/...r-strings.html

Frank Ford's Frets page also shows how. Some use more, some use less wraps. As long as the pinch is at the back of the tie block, it'll hold. If it's on top, it might slip.

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Musi...assicstr1.html

[Pedro Navaja]

I'd go with normal tie-end strings.