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I have one flamenco and 3 classicals and at some point on every one, I open the case the D string has frayed from the bridge and either has to be replaced or if Im lucky, theres enough extra string at the tuners to re string it. Why does this happen? Is it common?
Once the metal winding goes on the D string it's gone...either sounds odd and buzzy or snaps. It's the easiest bass string to go, but should have a reasonable life so long as you don't have a sharp edge on the saddle biting into it. Likewise sharp edge on the nut...or a sharp fret (especially if using a capo).
I had this problem with the high E-string. You could try to file the edge of the bridge a leat little bit.
Since I use the simple Addario classical strings I never had that problem again.They don't sound very good, but they're quite cheap and I can change them more often. Nevertheless they won't break even if I keep them on my guitar for 4 weeks and play a lot.
A trick I use to stop this problem- tear or cut a piece of paper into a 2mmX2mm square and carefully put it between the D-string and the bridge. My string lasts much longer doing this.
In all the years I am playing I have never had a D string break at the bridge. The funny thing is that the D string is in fact the string that most often breaks, but it usually breaks at the second or third fret, apparently because those two frets get played more often than the others, especially in flamenco. If you look at your strings, whatever brand, after you've played on them for a while, you will see more wear at those two frets than anywhere else. Of course on my luthier guitars I change the strings long before they would reach the point of breaking, but I have a couple of beat-up guitars that I use when I'm writing out sheet music, because I'm always picking them up and putting them down a hundred times as I go back and forth from the guitar to the sheet music, and the guitar inevitably gets knocked around, banging into the desk and worse, so I wouldn't dream of using any of my good guitars for that. But on these guitars I don't bother changing the strings until one of them breaks, so on these I frequently see the D string break at the second or third fret. If it's breaking at the bridge, I guess a sharp edge on the saddle might be the problem. There is one other possibility you might look into. With some strings one end seems to be a bit thinner and kind of squiggly. If you tie on to the bridge with that winding, it might easily break. Try tying on to the bridge with the other end.
In fact the D-string breaks mostly due to highest demands on 2/3 fret. I casually work in a music store and "normal amateur" guitarists often wonder about it, we always order extra D-strings to sell. But I wonder how to break a A- or even a E-string - our customers are able to manage it[:D, this has never happened to me so far... But when I get their guitars to change strings I sometimes know why: the tuning is adventuresome - up to an octave too high
But this even happens if you receive guitars as a retailer, e.g. from the far east: the tuning depends on which chinese held the guitar as the last one...
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