Breaking strings.

Rllink

Rllink

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People often mention strings breaking. I've been playing ukulele for five years, and I play my ukulele every day with few exceptions. I've never broken a string. What am I doing wrong? How do you break strings?
 
The last string that broke did so while my ukulele was hanging on the wall, while I was looking at it and admiring it from across the room. The A string just went ping and broke clean in half for no particular reason. Sometimes it's not playing it that does it.
 
I've been playing ukes for about twenty-five years and have only ever had one string breakage. I don't know what caused that one, but it seems to me that such events are rare indeed.

John Colter.
 
The only time I broke a string was as a beginner installing new strings and tightened one too much. In the 6 years I've been playing and the 19 ukes I've owned, I've never otherwise broken a string.

This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
I've broken a string just once. I had tuned that particular uke (a soprano) up and down between GCEA and ADF#B a few times trying to decide which I preferred. I tuned it up to ADF#B once too often and the A string broke. The strings had been on a while too so I just changed them. That particular uke I eventually re homed.

Now I keep one soprano permanently in ADF#B. The others are all in GCEA though there's only one of those I play at all regularly, the Flea. The other two I have are just cheapie beaters.
 
I've had strings break on the pin hole and saddle a few times. A bit of smoothing with a Swiss file and sandpaper fixed it. In my uku classes I sometimes see broken wound G strings. Usually they were many years old and the frets had cut through the metal leaving bare nylon thread.
 
I've had a few break. Most of them were manufacturing problems that caused the strings to shred. A couple of these were Southcoasts, which Dirk promptly replaced and then some.
 
I only once had an ukulele string break.
My fluke fell over.

I had a few wound guitar strings break though.
 
The only time I broke a string was several years ago, and it wasn't my uke (naturally I was horrified). It was the E on my friend's baritone, which was probably in need of a string change anyway, and my somewhat rough strumming didn't help (beginner problems). I've never broken a string on my concert even though they're quite old and are showing slight visible wear now.

Some people have cited damaged/sharp frets or rough edges on the nut or bridge as possible causes for frequent string breaks. Guess I've just been lucky. Knock on wood...
 
This has been really interesting to think about. Like everybody else who posted, my string-breaking experience is so limited as to be almost "never." The only time I ever broke a string while playing, was on guitar, in 1975 or '76 (I remember when it happened). The only time I broke a string while restringing an instrument, was a few years ago when I was putting new strings on a tenor guitar tuned CGDA. I was using a guitar E string, and had to tune it up to A. Broke the first one, but the second one worked.

I've never broken a string on ukulele, banjo or bass.
 
I've had strings break regularly on my tahitian and once on a banjo uke. None have happened while playing, I just come into the room and the string has snapped at some point.
 
I had strings break on a resonator tenor. They broke overnight. After restringing 3 times, I realized that the strings were tightening at night and the metal plate of the resonator had a sharp edge where the knot of the string was held in place.

One string break on a tenor. The nut had a rough burr on the edge of the groove. It was wearing the string as I was tuning it. It eventually broke.

Overtightened a new A string too quickly and it snapped.
 
Only had one string break in almost twelve years; a group of us had played for about three hours, beating a whole load of favourites to death.We stopped for a break,and I sat talking to a couple of friends. The High G on my uke simply went 'ping' and had snapped for no reason.The uke was lying on a table at the time. But I have never had one break during playing!
 
I’ve had a few strings shred, but not break.
The only strings I’ve had break were the first run of Aquila Reds. (Mimo replaced them).
 
The only broken strings I've come across were discovered when I open the uke case. That happened twice.
 
Never had this happen to me before and I don't change strings that often!
 
SailingUke said:
I’ve had a few strings shred, but not break.
The only strings I’ve had break were the first run of Aquila Reds. (Mimo replaced them).
Click to expand...

My experience, too. The Reds were lovely players but very delicate, particularly when settling in.

I've had no other breakage problems with Aquilas, and really like the Sugars and the Martin Premiums.
 
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