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I've noticed that every time I see a new guitar, straight from the maker, the bass strings always seem to be on back to front.
I've just always strung my guitar with the flexible loose wound ends around the bridge and as that just seems so obvious, but when they come on first delivery, the loose wound flexible ends are up at the machine end.
Has anyone noticed this before?
Anyway, I tryed it that way and noticed that the bass strings seem to tune up and stay in pitch quicker than normal.
Hi Jim, I always put the loose ends at the top through the rollers. I figure if you tie them around the tieblock they would stretch loose since they stretch if you pull on them. I've also read you can do it the way you do as well. I guess it's personal preference. Now that I think of it, I've never done it your way. I think I'll try it like that next.
The main reason it is advisable is this: you risk the windings cutting into the tieblock if you put the loose ends down there. There's a luthier website where he talks about the repairs he's had to make on guitars where people have wound the loose end round the tieblock. You can often see the wear caused by this on older guitars.
Hi Jim, I used to do it your way as well...it seemed logical somehow. But I too noticed that the new guitars were strung the other way round. Then one day in Spain a guitarist laughed at me and said "Why do you put your strings on the wrong way round?" I was at a fragile age and felt embarrased, so I've put the loose ends through the rollers ever since!
Hmmm... I just had a look at some old LP covers. On one Paco Peña cover (Flamenco Paco Peña) it looks like he's using Savarez red card strings (which I know he was using in those days) and he's got the floppy end going through the rollers. Interesting...in the pictures of Sabicas, PdL etc, there seem to be no floppy ends either at the tieblock or rollers. I noticed in one PdL picture he seems to be using those "Gato Negro" black trebles.
How in the world can you tell what strings a guitarist is using by looking at a photo??? They all look the same to me. How do you know Paco's are Gato Negro and not La Bella black trebles or even some type of gut strings?
La Bella's flamenco strings feature black trebles. I don't know if they were around way back in the day though. They also make these blood red trebles. I don't really like these and they also stain the rollers. What's with color anyway? Does it serve a purpose or is it only for looks?
I know you are a guitar dealer and have to keep in touch with all the issues. On the coloured string issue, well, frankly I was lying! I actually do know, but was reluctant to tell, lest no one would believe me. I may as well disclose this episode which happened to me back in 1970...
One day as I was coming out of the old Ramirez shop in Madrid , I practically tripped up over somebody sitting on the pavement outside, who asked me if I could spare "a few pesetas for an old man." Whilst digging in my pocket for some loose change, he asked me what I had bought. I told him, just some Savarez strings for my guitar.... He reached out for them, took one look at them and threw them to the ground. "Paa!...French muck! ... Where are you from amigo?... Let me tell you the true story of true Spanish stringmaking." I picked up my packet of strings and quickly pocketed them, as he beckoned me to sit beside him. "Look amigo", he said "I spent forty five years of my life making strings in the old "Black String" factory up in the North of this city, until I became too old to work anymore. Nobody could make strings like us amigo... Nobody. Even The Maestro himself used them as you can see on his Album cover. Back in those days, all the orphans from the various barrios would come, barefoot and dressed in rags bringing us dead cats, mostly the result of road accidents etc, for which the Manager would pay between one and three pesetas each one, depending on the quality and blackness of the cat. One day a boy, just a child of maybe nine or ten, appeared with one of the fattest and blackest cats I had ever seen...La Madre Mia!...it was a sight indeed to behold! The Manager quicky sent someone up to fetch the Señorito, the owner of the Factory. He came down and inspected it, smiled and nodded in approval, and pressed a shiny duro piece into the urchin's grubby hand. Hombre!.... Five pesetas for a cat?...It was unheard of in those days I tell you! I have never come across such a cat since. When we had collected enough cats, then the Head Stringmaker would light the fire under the brine filled Cauldron and once it was up to temperature, the Apprentices would lower the dead cats in, a similar kind of process really as boiling horses down for glue. The broth was then lovingly hand stirred by Apprentices who would sleep and work in shifts for three nights and three days, slowly reducing to a thick, black gloop. At that point, the Head Stringmaker would return, constantly checking the consistency and quality every two minutes, even forgoing meal times until it was just perfect. At that point he would shout "Eso Es!" We'd immediately all stop playing cards or fooling around and we'd all stand in silence. An Appentice would run to fetch the Señorito, who would return with a phial of his 'secret ingedient', which was the elixor of turning the gloop into strings. The potion was poured in and quickly stirred by the Head Stringmaker, who would then take a long rod, known as "El Varilla" and carefully pull up a filament of the black substance, pulling it slowly across a 100 metre long glass table, at which were seated some thirty or so girls. These girls were not your usual cigar rollers from the Tobacco Factories, but hand picked, imported workers from the Spaghetti rolling industry in Italia. They could roll that cooling filament to within a thousanth of a millimetre with just the touch of their hands...we didn't even have a micrometer in the Factory! It was a joy to watch them work. When the filament had cooled sufficiently and had achieved it's strength and suppleness, it was then cut up into lengths and placed in packets suitable for selling."
I told him I was truly amazed at this "underworld" of string manufacture, and I asked him about the red strings I had seen. Where were they made? He laughed and nodded... "Si Hombre, recuerdo muy bien", he said smiling. "It was a foreigner, Americano, I think, started a Factory here in Madrid looking for a new innovation in strings. He wasn't a cat man though, mainly dogs.... After many months experimenting he came up with the Red Setter as the best for strength and durability. Some people didn't like them much, as the strings would leave red marks on the bridge and the rollers. Actually they used to sell the red dog distillate to Conde Hermanos, who would mix it with Shellac and Turpentine to finish their guitars with. They liked the reddish-orange finish and said it gave the guitars more of a bite and growl."
I thanked him for his story and as I was about to go, he asked me for fifty pesetas for another bottle of "Fundador" as all this story telling was making him thirsty. So that's the true story of coloured strings, brought to you for the first time exclusively on this Forum.
cheers
Ron
PS Do you think Jason Webster would be interested in this for his new book "Duende Revisited"?
ORIGINAL: Ron.M PS Do you think Jason Webster would be interested in this for his new book "Duende Revisited"?
You just need to take some drugs, get off with the bloke's wife and you're basically there, Ron.
"..the most inspiring and authentic account of string making I have ever read." Literary Review
"..Ron.M takes us on an exhilirating journey to the heart of the string maker. Never before has such an absolutely 100% true, it-all-actually-happened, factual account of one man's search for string perfection ever been published, ever." Publishers' Weekly
"..I could almost smell the dog slop. I just wish he would get off with that bloke's wife." The Sun
I always put the loose wound end at the nut, otherwise it will unwind a bit leaving the nylon exposed which can snap due to friction on the bridge, never understood why they do that with strings anyway. Billyboy
Ok! I hear what you all say about me being upside down and not the strings. But it's obvious that it costs money to make a 'special' end on a string, I mean some cheap strings are just cut lengths with no loose end, so why do they do it? Only reason can be to make it easier to bend the string and tie round the bridge, right!
Why don't you drop a line to your "good friends" at Savarez and ask them? At least we'll have a final answer!
They would answer the the loose end is a result of the winding machine marking the individual string length on the long uncut string at the machine. The loose end is thus not intended to simplify tieing at the bridge.
Glad we've got these useful tips!! A related question...how much slack to leave on the strings, AKA, how much string to leave hanging from the hole in the rollers (to be cut off later)? I leave only a little slack, and cut off a lot of string at the head, but maybe I shouldn't do that and maybe I should use the whole string?
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that's why I need to know your secret. 
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