Topic: Aquila Alchemia string broke when fitting first time, any suggestions?
Aquila Alchemia string broke when fitting first time, any suggestions?
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Classical Guitar Conversations » Troubleshooting » Aquila Alchemia string broke when fitting first time, any suggestions?
Aquila Alchemia string broke when fitting first time, any suggestions?
Aquila strings are hand made and are definitely not as tough as those we have become used to from the major industrial makers such as D'Addario and Savarez.
So some special precautions are in order
1) Smoothing the way
With some very fine polishing grade sandpaper, smooth the top of the saddle where the strings pass over it to remove any burrs or roughness (often this is there even if you can't see it)
Take the same piece of sandpaper, fold it into a V with the rough side outwards, then smooth the inside of each of the notches in the nut.
Finally, take a soft pencil (B or BB or BBB) and rub it across the top of the saddle - the pencil "lead" will lubricate the apex.
2) Natural stretching
Bring the string up to tension very gradually.
1) tune it to a tone flat and retune to this same pitch to start the stretching
2) tune it to a semi-tone flat and retune to this same pitch to contine the stretching
3) after say a day, tune it to pitch and retune to pitch to complete the stretching
Do NOT - take it straight to pitch and then pull/stretch the string with the hand as many people do. The chances of it snapping are very high indeed.
In the end, none of the above will completely prevent strings from breaking but it will happen far less often.
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