At 08:09 -0400 8/5/10, Wiliam Ballard wrote: >...So in this situation where I've run out of expertise, I thought >I'd dip into the communal well. Anyone have this happen to them? >Anyone know enough about the physics involve to suggest why the >standard benefit from twisting vanished overnight, while the twist >remained? IOW, should I trust 2.5 turns where 1.5 didn't work? Twisting tubby or buzzing strings to try to revive them is always a gamble. The strings presumably sounded as they should when they were first put on and if they were properly made and nothing had happened to cause corrosion, they would sound as good after 100 years. When you twist the strings you are relying on the flattening of the core wire at each end of the covering to hold the copper fast so that the twisting will tighten the whole coil of copper in between and (you hope) improve the contact of the covering with the core wire. If the flattening is inadequate, the copper will creep and lose the tension you have added. The core wire will retain its twist, but the copper will lose the tension you added by means of the twisting. Besides that, there is the question of what sort of foreign matter, corrosion etc. may have led to the deterioration in the contact between core and cover. By tightening the covering (twisting the core and relying on the flattening to hold the ends) you may be lucky and crush the oxides etc. enough to improve the tone, and more likely you will not, and the string will sound as bad or worse or never as good as it should. You used the word "dead" to describe the strings. That's the right word. You have applied a temporary life support fix, but they are dead. JD
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