[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by camera_obscura

is there a proper length you need to follow when are determining the slack/excess string to wind around the pegs? i just eyeball it the distance from one peg to another. and do the treble strings need a little bit more slack?

Hi c_o…
Because I do a lot of alternate and drop tunings mixed with standard tuning on the same instruments, I leave 1 wrap above, and 3 windings below the wound strings, and 1 above and 5-7 winds below on the shaft of plain strings.

This is due to a David Wilcox comment that this will prevent breakage when tuning up and down (and he is the king of retuning).

Before, when I did 1 above and 2 below on all 6 strings, I'd occasionally lose a 2nd or 3rd string to retunings while bringing them back to pitch. In the past 4 years, since doing the extra winding, not one string has snapped despite the tortures I perform on them.

For my guitars it amounts to 2 frets worth of slack (at 4th fret) on the 6th, 2.5 frets on the 5th, 3 frets on the 4th and 3rd, and 3 frets on the 2nd and 3.5 on the first.