Official Luthiers Forum!

Which one do you find the best?
Getting tired of puncture wounds.
Anything leave a (relatively) blunt string end?
D'Addario type appears to shear rather than nip the wires like sidecutters, does that help?

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

A mandolin playing friend (who has sadly, passed on) showed me a way to avoid the sharp end of the guitar string. She would clip the string end about 3/4 inch(+/-) from the post and then bend the string end in half so it formed a "V" shape with the sharp point pointing down. This has worked for me.

Conor... You haven't lived until you run a plain .018 up under your fingernail about a quarter inch. You'll see stars even with your eyes closed.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Done the fingernail thing - not fun.

Best cutters I've found are just high-quality flush cutters. Cut with the flat side toward the post. The strings will still poke you but just not as bad. I also cut the strings as close to the post as I can get.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The fifth peg on a banjo is particularly notorious for gotchas. On these, I do similar to what Clay mentioned--I leave the string a little bit long, then double it over with the sharp end right next to the string, and pointing back towards the tuner shaft.

On guitars I'm getting fonder and fonder of locking tuners where I can just cut the strings really short, avoiding the problem all together.

Dave

Anyone here use the Evan Gluck trick?

https://youtu.be/M0noE2TwJ8E?t=305

No tool required.


But to answer the original question I like my Piano wire cutters: https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/hand-tools/pliers/71973-nws-regular-and-high-leverage-side-cutters?item=24K2140

I don't like that trick. It seems like it would allow the string to slip, especially the smaller strings. I like to bend the tail at an angle that is opposite to the other side of the post, which provides a bit of a lock to slippage. And then just cut is as short as possible.

My preference is small side cutters, clip as close to the post as possible. I’ve never stabbed myself on a string cut this way, it’s always where someone has left a “long tail” sticking out when clipping the strings.

The Gluck trick makes me nervous for some reason but the guy has fixed a zillion guitars and built a good rep over many years so I’m sure its fine.

A tuner I use on my travel guitars is the Kluson with the safety posts. The string end is buried in the hollow post. For those who absolutely hate pricking their finger on a string end this might be a solution:
https://reverb.com/item/36367744-kluson ... s-kd-6b-np
They make them 3 on a side or 6 inline style.
Stringing video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnSvEhySebg

For a pair of cutters the Knipex 74-02-200 have lasted me 9+ years of daily nonstop use in my repair shop. As far as the sharp post cut points go they don't do anything to mitigate that. Any cut end of metal will by nature be sharp

https://www.lowes.com/pd/KNIPEX-Angled- ... lsrc=aw.ds