Weturn of the Weird Warbly Wickenbacker!

wormdiet · Post by **wormdiet** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:17 pm

So I spent the evening changing strings on my 330 last night. When I got my 660, Chris at POTR thoughtfully threw in a set of Pyramid Gold .011's for the old standby - the kind I like!

Anyways, so I notice that the d string and the A string both pulsate. . . like they are out of tune. The problem is, they pulsate on their own, with no help from any other strings. So I spent last evening and most of this evening tinkering with the guitar. I did just about every thing imaginable - stuffing paper into the bridge to immobilize the intonation springs, tweaking the rods, tweaking the intonation screws themselves, reversing the bridge, immobilizing all strings behind the bridge, immobilizing all strings on the headstock. . . let's see. . . re-installing the strings. . . .checking the screws on the machine heads. . . etc. etc. ad nauseam. The only thing I did not do was get into the control cavity (And I considered it!)

Turns out, it wasn;t the ceiling fan (like last time) it was the *new strings* themselves. At any rate, I put on my old A and D and no warble (These were also pyramids).

Is it possible that some strings are just born defective? I;ve heard all sorts of great stuff about pyramids (and indeed, they do sound and feel good and last a long time) but two bum strings in one set is just odd.

Or is it possible to screw up something as simple as a string change and get strange results? I did everything by-the-book - proper number of turns, 1st over, rest under, etc, and I can;t figure this one out.

For the time being the problem is moot, but I am mighty curious. Anybody have some light to shed on this matter?

On the bright side, the old strings *still*, after many many moons, sound great. The only difference to the new ones is a very slight loss in top end and volume. Still got the chunk rhythm + jangle though.

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 6:00 pm

some strings may have sat around too long or something ... I have had various weird and dead strings through the years ...

fred · Post by **fred** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 5:07 pm

Check the string saddles in the nut. It is possible that the strings are not seating correctly.

soundmasterg · Post by **soundmasterg** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:53 pm

The other guys mentioned soem good things. I also heard from a guitar maker friend that depending on how you cut the string when you are winding it, with a flatwound, you can loosen the core to where it gets an odd warble to it. That happened on my Rick bass recently when using Thomastik-Infeld flats. I followed his advice by bending the string and cutting after the bend and didn't have the problem, so I think it works!

wormdiet · Post by **wormdiet** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:28 am

It's definitely not a busted nut (sic) because the old strings work in it just fine. I suppose I'll be more careful snipping the strings in the future. . . although that's not the explanation that one would arrive at intuitively, it could make sense.