[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Thisisme

Hello. I have a weissenborn guitar (acoustic lap steel) and I change tuning quite a lot especially from open d, dadgad and open d minor which means the 3rd string gets tuned differently quite a lot. The string breaks about every 2 weeks. Is there a way you wear your strings in so they last longer while changing tunings?

Hi Tim

On acoustic guitars I started winding the wound strings all the way down the shaft, and the treble pair at least 6-8 windings down the shaft, and it ended that issue for me.

The idea came from David Wilcox who is the most prolific re-tuner I've ever met. I once lost track of the 'next' tuning during a concert on the 11th time he re-tuned his guitar during the concert. It wasn't his last time re-tuning, I just lost track of what he tuned it to.

He started recommending the deeper winding back in the 1990s, and as recently as 5 years ago at a workshop, he's still dishing out that advice. And I've never seen him break a string during his concerts.

I'm not sure I buy his 'theory' as to why it works, but it works! He felt the string coming off the bottom of the shaft was suffering from less stress than when it comes off the shaft near the hole in the shaft.

I used to pop a 3rd string on my acoustic about one in 10 sets, and I have not broken a string (nor stopped re-tuning my guitars frequently) for about 15 years now.

Hope this adds to the discussion…

[EDIT]I see someone else mentioned David too (above)…[EDIT]