Do strings have a shelf life.

57Deluxe

mythology says Clapton HATES new strings on his guitars...

designerseye88

I'm kind of done with EB's too. They seem to corrode after about 1 or 2 gigs even with a thorough wipe down. I think I'll head over the D'addarios 

Alvin

I like D'Addario for the sealed packs but mostly use Pyramid now buying in bulk from Thomann .  They are in paper packs though ( unless they have updated them) .   So i lob them in plastic bags with the seals and throw in some silica gel bags , seems to keep them fresh .

Tannin

As the acoustic people here will know, I'm in the habit of collecting all the different strings I can find around the world and, set by set, trying them out. To keep postage costs reasonable, I typically buy 6-12 sets at once (all different makes but from the same shop) and because you can't get all the different strings from any one vendor, I order from several places.

Result: I have lots of strings sitting around waiting their turn to go on a guitar. Right now I have about 75 sets on hand - i.e., enough for somewhere between one and three years. Strings can sit here, in their manufacturer packaging, for one, two, or even three years before I get around to using them. (Plus however long they sat in the distribution chain from manufacturer to warehouse to retailer, plus usually about one month somewhere in the international postal system.)

How many issues have I had with corroded strings?

Zero.

Often they are well-packaged, but a surprisingly large number of makers just put them in paper envelopes and don't seal them up at all. 

I think the key here is humidity. We keep the house at a sensible, reasonably consistent temperature (no air conditioning, just good passive solar design) and the humidity is safe for acoustic guitars, usually between about 40% and about 60%. 

In theory, you want very low humidity for rust-free storage (like those aeroplane boneyards in Alice Springs and Arizona) but the merely moderate humidity around Casa Tannin seems to be perfectly adequate. 

Mind you, I don't buy strings from bottom-feeders like E-bay, Amazon, and Ali Express, so all the ones I have are genuine. That no doubt helps.

Devil#20

Tannin said:

Result: I have lots of strings sitting around waiting their turn to go on a guitar. Right now I have about 75 sets on hand - i.e., enough for somewhere between one and three lifetimes, so all the ones I have are genuine. That no doubt helps.

FTFY

Actually, I remember your magnus opus on guitar strings a while ago. I think I've bookmarked it for future reference.

I've quite a few spare sets of strings now I've gone round and collated them into the one box. I always wash my hands before playing and clean the strings afterwards so mine tend to last quite a while. I suggested this to a guitar playing mate of mine because he only plays his a few times and the strings seem to suffer badly but could be down to body chemistry in the oils in your skin I guess. I can get several months out of strings and it's usually a perceived impression that they aren't sounding as good that prompts me to change them. They usually look OK though and not all black or rough underneath. 

Be interested to know what's the longest anyone has had the same set of strings on a guitar for. I bought a Yamaha acoustic off a bloke over in Blackburn last year (FG435 for the record) and he said he'd never changed the strings on it and he'd had it over 20 years. It was dull to say the least but I took a chance on it. I put a new set on it when I got home and for the £160 I paid for it, it sounds glorius for a  cheap acoustic. 

Kurtis

75 sets of strings?!

That might last a year?!! 

Tannin

Cheers @Devil#20. My "magnum opus on guitar strings: is an ongoing project. I update it every three or four months. 

Clean hands - absolutely! For some reason I still remember reading something in a magazine - probably Guitar Player - back in the 1970s where a chap said "You wouldn't sit down to eat without washing your hands. Playing is the same."

I've always stuck by that, though modified a bit as with food you are concerned with bacteria where with guitars you don't really care about that as much as you do about foreign substances and sweat and body oils. So after doing something clean like reading or browsing The Fretboard, I'll probably just play, where I would wash anyway before eating.

I don't like getting my hands wet before playing as it softens the skin. Sure, you dry off but any prolonged exposure to water still softens the hands. So a quick rinse rather than the more thorough wash appropriate to eating or cooking. (It's not just the left hand, for a nails-and-flesh fingerpicker, soft skin on the fingertips is a no-no. I rely on work-hardened fingertips (that callous on the side of my thumb - my "plectrum" -  is critical!) and playing with water-softened hands wears that tough skin away very rapidly. 

Um ... I seem to be a very long way off-topic!

I think there is no doubt whatever that different people's different skin chemistry makes a massive difference to string life. Have you ever noticed that many pro musicians absolutely, positively insist on fresh strings for every gig, whereas plenty of others are far more relaxed? I reckon that comes down to skin chemistry as much as any other factor.  Some people just naturally clag up strings faster.

Dave_Mc

Alvin said:

I like D'Addario for the sealed packs but mostly use Pyramid now buying in bulk from Thomann .  They are in paper packs though ( unless they have updated them) .   So i lob them in plastic bags with the seals and throw in some silica gel bags , seems to keep them fresh .

Yeah you see that's what I should have thought to do if I weren't a complete idiot.

Tannin

Kurtis said:

75 sets of strings?!

That might last a year?!! 

Yep. 

I have about 8 guitars. Suppose I change strings once a month: that's close to 100 sets a year. In practice it averages about half that. The two baritones seem to be perfectly happy to go longer than that. (Much longer for one of them. Why not both? Hard to say.) On standard acoustics I'll often keep a nice set on for two or three months, but then there are the sets I try out and don't like much - they'll often come off after just a week or two - and some types of string naturally have a shorter life - silk & steel sets struggle to go past three weeks, they are already dull after two; ditto those lovely but short-lived silver-plated Pyramids; the John Pearce Silk & bronze ones I favour for one particular guitar last little longer than silk & steels; any brass string has a shorter lifespan  than a phosphor bronze one. 

So 75 sets for a year is about right, give or take. (I don't usually have quite so many but I got a bit carried away with the Black Friday sales last time!)

QUESTION: seeing as I have all these spare strings, does that mean that, as an economy measure, I need to buy two or three extra guitars to use them up? Hmmm ... Maybe an HD-28, a Lowden F-35 in cedar and walnut, and perhaps one of those lovely little all-Koa Taylors ......

Alvin

Dave_Mc said:

Alvin said:

I like D'Addario for the sealed packs but mostly use Pyramid now buying in bulk from Thomann .  They are in paper packs though ( unless they have updated them) .   So i lob them in plastic bags with the seals and throw in some silica gel bags , seems to keep them fresh .

Yeah you see that's what I should have thought to do if I weren't a complete idiot.

Plastic tupperware boxes may work better or something with a good seal but i just used what was knocking about.

robgilmo

Would they stay fresh if you stored them in the freezer?

Kurtis

Tannin said:

Kurtis said:

75 sets of strings?!

That might last a year?!! 

Yep. 

I have about 8 guitars. Suppose I change strings once a month: that's close to 100 sets a year. In practice it averages about half that. The two baritones seem to be perfectly happy to go longer than that. (Much longer for one of them. Why not both? Hard to say.) On standard acoustics I'll often keep a nice set on for two or three months, but then there are the sets I try out and don't like much - they'll often come off after just a week or two - and some types of string naturally have a shorter life - silk & steel sets struggle to go past three weeks, they are already dull after two; ditto those lovely but short-lived silver-plated Pyramids; the John Pearce Silk & bronze ones I favour for one particular guitar last little longer than silk & steels; any brass string has a shorter lifespan  than a phosphor bronze one. 

So 75 sets for a year is about right, give or take. (I don't usually have quite so many but I got a bit carried away with the Black Friday sales last time!)

QUESTION: seeing as I have all these spare strings, does that mean that, as an economy measure, I need to buy two or three extra guitars to use them up? Hmmm ... Maybe an HD-28, a Lowden F-35 in cedar and walnut, and perhaps one of those lovely little all-Koa Taylors ......

Don't think I've used that many strings in my life 

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

QUESTION: seeing as I have all these spare strings, does that mean that, as an economy measure, I need to buy two or three extra guitars to use them up?

Yes

Alvin said:

Dave_Mc said:

Alvin said:

I like D'Addario for the sealed packs but mostly use Pyramid now buying in bulk from Thomann .  They are in paper packs though ( unless they have updated them) .   So i lob them in plastic bags with the seals and throw in some silica gel bags , seems to keep them fresh .

Yeah you see that's what I should have thought to do if I weren't a complete idiot.

Plastic tupperware boxes may work better or something with a good seal but i just used what was knocking about.

Yeah that's a good idea, too. I guess anything which keeps the moisture out, and ideally some silica too, would be the thing.