I do like the Thomastik Enfield, they are some nice playing strings, but as you say they are a tad bit pricey and often difficult to get a hold of. I've often re-strung my Casino with them.Originally Posted by dingobass
I do like the Thomastik Enfield, they are some nice playing strings, but as you say they are a tad bit pricey and often difficult to get a hold of. I've often re-strung my Casino with them.
FrankenLab
Hand crafting guitars, because Death Rays are expensive.
I've been trying some Thomastik Infeld Plectrums on my acoustics recently, and they are nice, but expensive, even here in the UK. But I'm not that taken with their general string sizing. Because most of the wound strings are groundwound, they have a smaller diameter to a normal set, so you end up with pretty light bottom strings compared to the tops, when on most acoustics, they could do with being a lot beefier. And it's not cheap trying to make up your own custom set!
Last edited by Simon Barden; 11-12-2016 at 06:37 PM.
I doubt I'll ever find out how good the Thomastik Enfield's are. At $60 a set, as much as I love my guitars, they are way out of my league.
UK prices typically range from £13(A$21) for electric sets to around £17(A$29) for acoustic sets (so still very pricey strings), though you can occasionally find them a bit cheaper. They do last a long time so you can view them in the same bracket as coated strings. But at $60, they really aren't that much better than other good string makes to warrant paying so much for them.
They are not as good, but D'addario do chromes that are a lot easier on the pocket. I have these on my $90 Squire and they go quite well.
FrankenLab
Hand crafting guitars, because Death Rays are expensive.
Hey guys, although I've never tried TE's when I was playing bass on a semi regular basis I tried most of the regular brands and always went back to D'Addarios.
I don't even bother looking anymore it's D's for me. I have Chromes on my fretless bass and super lights on all my guitars.
D'Addarios for me as well. Hated their new NB acoustic strings (if I wanted strings that dead I could just leave then on for a year) and I think the new NY's are overpriced as I really can't tell any difference between them and their standard range, but otherwise all good.
I think I am finally finished
Intonation is not perfect but it is much better than it was. None of the strings intonate perfectly but all are within about 2 cents at the 12th fret, which basically means that to my old ears, I can play Barre chords up to about the 7th fret. I ended up putting on another new set of D'Addarios, cut the nut a little deeper to get the open string chords to ring true and then lowed the saddle by about 1mm. This guitar now has the lowest action of all my guitars. Never having worked on an acoustic bridge before I am not sure if it is me or the guitar, but it is still the fussiest guitar to tune. But it’s now close enough so I was going to “sign off” on her ….. UNTIL……...
Another problem developed. Sometime over the last month or so the treble E string went dead. Playing the guitar unplugged it rings true, but when played through an amp the E string was a dull thud. I figured the problem had to be either (a) dead Piezo crystals under the E string or (b) the under saddle pickup was not getting good contact with the floor of the saddle slot.
I removed the saddle and was able to slide the under saddle pickup along a bit further so that each string was now bearing on a different section of the pickup. That should sort problem (a)
Problem (b). Using only hand tools and with my limited skills I had no way of leveling the floor of the saddle slot so I resorted to using air drying clay. (Why clay? Because clay doesn’t adhere to anything but itself, so if it doesn’t work it should be easy to remove and I could progress to plans B, C, D…..Z.) I had read that putting a strip of clay under the piezo would do the trick. However I was concerned that some of the clay would be squeezed out and cover the top of the pickup so I decide to modify this a little bit and put a small dollop (a technical term used by us clay-heads) of clay on the slot floor under each string. My theory being that as the clay has a 24 hour drying period I could tension up the strings and the clay had enough time to self-level and support the piezo and saddle before it dried hard.
A small portion of clay was placed on the slot floor under each string.
I have no idea which of the 2 solutions worked or whether it was a combination of both, but now all the strings ring out equally. Volume is no problem as it would appear that the piezo has more output than any of my electric guitars.
All in all, although a bit of a challenge I am very happy how she turned out.
NOW I can say she is finished!
rob
She's finally ready to rock... err clay! Well done Rob, innovative and effective.
Scott.
Nice work, Rob. Great to see you innovating all the time and trying new ideas out. Really glad it's all come together for you.
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