Official Luthiers Forum!

I have been using mostly either elixer or Martin SP lights on the guitars I build, but for laughs and giggles I bought a few sets of mediums to try out. One of my repair customers uses them exclusively and I needed a few sets on hand for when I work on his guitars.

When you are building, do you decide then that you are building for a particular size set of strings or do you decide this after you string it up? What advantages/disadvantages do you normally see when you change weights of strings in the instruments you build?

I'm curious as to how one decides which strings he is building a guitar for??


As a side note, The Martin D35 I bought in 1978 came with a note telling me to ONLY use medium strings on it. Any other weight string would void the warranty. I understand that lights have less pull on the neck and heavy's would probably bend it too far too quick. Any kind of change in the string weight would most likely mean a new setup at minimum, but are there other reasons for not changing the weight of strings?

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Reguards,

Ken H

your d-35 may have forward shifted x bracing, which may be more responsive , but I assume weakenes the system , since martin did this regularly until the 1940's ( or so ) , which in my understanding they they stopped when the popularity of heavier strings began causing warrantee issues .
Many people believe heavier strings produce more ( what ever that means )tone , which may be true on an overbuilt factory instrument. Jody

I build all my guitars heavy enough to handle medium strings. They still handle light strings just fine. My preference is for mixed gauges. Light wound strings and medium trebles. The heavier trebles fatten up the treble tone making it a stronger, rounder sound. They just sound better to me.

Mark