Strange string occurence

[gearbasher]

My brother put a new set of strings on his banjo. Yes, it's a Gibson. After tuning it up, he said the lower string was buzzing. I don't know how he could tell, to me, all banjo strings sound like they're buzzing. Anyhow, he brought the banjo to me, so I could check it out. Everything looked good. We found no reason for the buzzing. He decided to try a different set of strings. When he removed the buzzing string (please excuse the colorful description...if you have a better way of describing it, let me know. I can't think of one.)...well, when he remove the string, it was shaped like the world's longest pubic hair. Has anyone ever seen this happen to a string? I haven't.

[hlarry14]

I saw strings like that once. When I bought my Epiphone J-160E it had the worse looking strings of any guitar I had ever bought - I didn't notice that the strings buzzing, but they were very dead sounding and rusty looking. When I removed them the B and high E strings looked just as you described. I have no idea what brand (or even what gauge) they were.

[larryp58]

Man, where's onewileyfool when ya need him!!!!! This thread just can't go on without him!!!!!

[TommyK]

I wonder if installation could have caused that.

 

Imagine a garden hose that has a few curls in it, then you pull it taught. You end up with kinks. Is it possible there was a bit of twist in the strings before it was tightened up. Not enough to put a noticeable a single kink in it, but a gradual twist, like a Twizzler, before it was stretched. This might cause the string to curl up when removed.

 

It could be materials as well. Again with the hose analogy, Rubber hose is manufactured then rolled up on bulk rolls. The rubber in the hose, as is always somewhat fluid and takes a 'set' after it's spooled up. The hose on the outside of the roll, rolled in a larger circle, behaves much different than the last bit of hose wrapped closer to the spool. This causes problems when making hydraulic hoses. I've seen it happen that even with the hose ends, both angle fittings, having been installed correctly as the hose is laid in a straight line, the connections won't mate up on the machine after the hose is routed around corners. One angled end won't mate up where it belongs. There might be something similar happening here with the wire that is closer to the center of the bulk spool before it is cut off to make guitar strings.

 

Whatever the cause, a twisted string like this would probably not vibrate / wiggle in the normal fashion, making intermittent contact with the frets.

 

Take care upon installation, that the string lays in a straight line with no loopiness before applying any tension.