Pre-stretching of strings?

I restrung some ukes a month ago and their pitch now is so stable, that I worry, if time soon will come to restring them again.

Many years ago I read a book about The Royal Opera Orchestra in Copenhagen. Part of their life in the old pit, which since has been enlarged, was about the inevitable pinging of the high E-strings of the primo violins, which was an unhappy thing with the then fairly small string sections.

To minimize the problem the violinists hammered nails in the pit wall towards the public, where they tied up E-strings under some tension, so that they, when an E-string pinged, could take a prestretched E-string down from the wall and mount it on their violin.

Have ukulele players tried something similar?

One might imagine a stiff board with a bridge-like block at one end with slits for the strings and notches at the far end for the knots. The other end then could have tuners to stretch the strings. Would have to be longer than the scale length of the given uke, so that the oscillating part of the string was not harmed by being bent.

Klaus

I would think that a string settling in would have as much to do with the knots and the wrappings getting pulled up tight as it does to the elasticity of the strings.

Good business idea.

If you have problems with stretching strings, just re tune after every tune/song you play.

I pre stretch mine before installing, just with my hands. Pinch the knot with pliers or something and grab with the other hand and stretch. You can get them noticeably longer doing this and then when you install them, it doesn't take as long for them to settle in.

I just tune them a 1/2 step sharp, play a bit, retune a 1/2 step sharp, play a bit, etc. My strings are totally settled within a couple of days. When I put new strings on a uke, that's the one I grab MANY times a day and keep retuning it sharp. Pre-stretching can damage and weaken strings in my opinion.

deschutestrout said:

I just tune them a 1/2 step sharp, play a bit, retune a 1/2 step sharp, play a bit, etc. My strings are totally settled within a couple of days. When I put new strings on a uke, that's the one I grab MANY times a day and keep retuning it sharp. Pre-stretching can damage and weaken strings in my opinion.

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This is the process I use as well. Stretching the strings evenly is key. Unevenly stretching can cause thick and thin spots on the string causing buzzes and intonation issues. I almost always carry a second uke for gigs as a backup.

I have been lucky I guess and have never broken a uke string while playing ... guitar strings? That's a different story