Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Any suggestions on a way to not break so many strings. I have played several brands and I tend to break them at the bridge. Is there a way to smooth the bridge saddle?

I just bought a Carvin that used to break strings. You probably have a sharp edge on the bridge that is causing the string to break after playing for a while. One thing you can do is go to a heavier string. The other is get some fine grit emery cloth, 600 grit or finer, take a small screw driver that will fit into the string hole on your bridge and wrap the emery cloth around it and polish the place where the string bends around the bridge. You should see a sharp edge on the bridge where you string is breaking. Polish it just a little and look at it with a magnifying glass then polish it more only if needed. If you just take the sharp edge off of it then you should fix the problem. You don't need to take a lot off to fix it. DON"T just use a flie or something very abrasive. You'll ruin the bridge. You just need to break the edge a little.

Great. I appreciate teh advise. So where can I get fine grit emery cloth, 600 grit or finer ? Home Depot or a Cloth store?

You can probably get it at Home Depot. Any one who works in a machine shop can get it for you also. I'm sure a hardware store will also have it.

There are a lot of different things that could be going on here.

An often overlooked respose to this question is the brand of string your using. The old saying "get what you pay for" comes into play here. I'm not saying you need to buy a $50 pack of strings. However if you're buying a low brand thats under or around $5 a pack, you should be aware that there is a reason that they are so low in price...

If you are consistently breaking a specific string, and/or at a certain place, that should be you first clue to examine your guitar. Could be your bridge, bridge pin, your nut, your gears, could be a sharp fret (the metal, not the board).

However, if you're breaking without some sort of pattern, it could be your playing. Perhaps strumming to hard, or attempting to bend a string too far.

As mentioned before, stretching your strings a bit is a good practice; it will increase malleability of the metal (bronze, phosphor, nickel or whatever your strings are made of) and give it some elasticity. It also will help keep intonation in the string, keeping it in tune a little longer. But don't over do it, they’re not rubber bands…

Hope this helps.

E

Stop bar could be to low as well

no worries bud, I am a pro guitar builder what kind of guitar and what guage strings ? I can help......

no worries bud, I am a pro guitar builder what kind of guitar and what guage strings ? I can help......

Does your guitar have a tremolo...IE: Floyd Rose or Kahler? It sounds to me to definitely be a bridge saddle with a bur on it. Sanding the bur out is the first step for you to do. As far as over bending the string............I bend mine so far it's not funny,and I do not break strings. Since it breaks at the saddle, a bur is what yoiu are dealing with. I build guitars, andhave been for over 20 years. I hope I helped.


RICCO POLLAN

everyone is giving you good info except there difficult solutions to a simple problem all you have to do is go to stewmac.com and order the string saver bridge saddles for your type of bridge----> problem fixed without tedious work involved

try not playing harder than your strings can handle. that solved my string-breaking problem. that may or may not be it, but it's worth a try.

no worries bud, I am a pro guitar builder what kind of guitar and what guage strings ? I can help......

this guy brings up a very good point. of course, all strings look prtty identical, but there are a lot of brands tht just break more than others. i personally have had horrible expeiences with ernie ball, but d'darrios have been a godsend.

Any suggestions on a way to not break so many strings. I have played several brands and I tend to break them at the bridge. Is there a way to smooth the bridge saddle?

I know that SRV actually put plastic sleeves on the end of his string where it came out of the hole and bent around over the saddle piece. This would take care of any "Burrs" but you would want to make sure the sleeve ends well before the string comes across the saddle!

Hi I went through a period when I was breaking strings I checked out for bur's and still no joy,I have used ernie ball strings and others until I switched to Rotosounds now I use them on all of my guitars and have had no problems.
From my experiences you also have to look at how much you are playing with the same strings fitted,especially with all the sweat that can be laid down on the strings and the style of music you are playing,in my case it was heavy rock.
The other guitarist that was in the band at the time was always breaking strings at gigs it was so frustrating, why he broke so many srtings was in my opinion that he never regulaly changed them and he only changed the string that broke, I always completely change the strings after four or five gigs regardless.
GAZZ