Ok, I was just wondering where everyone gets there strings, because each time I get a new set, its costs up to £20 when I get them individually. I does cost cheaper if you get them in a set, but sometimes I need about 10 11's, 14's, and you know. I'm from Watford, right outside London.

Also, theres something I wanna know - Does anyone spray there maple neck with WD40? because someone told me and it softens maple necked strats.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice.

Hmmm. I believe you can order new strings off of www.musiciansfriend.com but I'm not sure about overseas. They should be pretty cheap though.

About the WD40. I don't know for sure about that, so be VERY careful. Someone else probably knows.

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"You won't part with your's either"

Fender American Standard Stratocaster 2006

Fender Standard Telecaster 2007

From your post here it sounds like you are just replacing individual strings as they break or something? If that's the case, most folks replace all 6 strings during a "string change", so yes most folks buy them buy the pack. I can't speak for others but personally I end up changing the strings on my guitars around every other month...sometimes more, sometimes less (at least in regards to the guitars that I use regularly...I now have 23 guitars so the instruments that I don't use on a regular basis don't get their strings changed too often). So in other words, if you break a string or they start to get black or rusty and/or start to sound "flat" or won't stay in tune, just change the whole set.

As far as price goes, yes a pack of strings is going to be cheaper in the long run than buying 6 string individually. I don't know about across the pond there but here in the US, sometimes the bigger music stores will have sales where you can pick up 10 packs of strings for comparatively cheap and save yourself even more money.

On the WD40...very -BAD- idea. Even though a maple fretboard is usually coated with either clear lacquer or poly, WD40 is a penetrating machine lubricant and it will soak into any unprotected areas of wood and cause that wood to deteriorate (such as around the neck pocket area). It can also deteriorate any glue joints on the instrument as well...in the case of the fretboard, I can cause your nut to come unglued and in the case of the body if you have a laminate body there's the potential to totally destroy that body. Obviously as your fretboard starts to wear, this will happen there too and the WD40 could even cause your fretboard to wear prematurely depending on the finish....it's a very easy to way destroy your guitar beyond repair. With maple fretboards, most folks will just wipe their fretboards with a clean rag during a string change (as well as clean the body, chrome, set the intonation afterwards, etc) but if you really feel the need to put some kind of oil on your fretboard, then use something specifically for wood...linseed oil or lemon oil or something similar that isn't going to harm the wood. The -only- place I would use WD40 on a guitar would be if I were trying to free up some rusty screws in the bridge or something and even then I would remove the bridge from the body so that the WD40 is no where near the wood.

Whoever told you to use WD40 on your fretboard...please crack them in the head with a 2x4 or something for me...that's -very- bad advice.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

Ah Jimmy the plight of the custom set of strings. I take it that is what your doing? Mixing sizes. If not go and buy a box of 12 sets for £45 from watford valves or somewhere. If you are mixing sizes then all you can do is find a shop that still sells strings individualy. I know of one in worcestershire, about 100 miles from both of us in opposite directions.

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No no and no

You can buy whole packs of single strings here. http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... gs/singles

No WD40 !!! Try this. http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... sku=420450

Lomitus is quite right, NEVER put WD40 anywhere near wood! It's basicaly a machine dissloved in an organic solvent, to reduce its viscosity to allow it to penetrate. I's used to free-up corroded metal parts, spray it on, it penetrates, the solvent evaporates off, leaving the lubricant coated the interenal surfaces to be sepaterated.



I've rad all kinds of crap about oils and how to use them, much of it on here.

There are essentially two types of oil: mineral (used for protecting and lubricating metal), and vegatable (some of which are used for protecting wood.

I've heard people on here asy use gun oil on your guitar neck, I think what they ACTUALLY mean is gun STOCK oil, used on the the woodeen furnature (ie 'stock' etc), gun oil is a mineral oil used for the metal parts of firearms (eg 'Young's 303), NEVER put that stuff anywhere near wood, it will soften and damage it.

Vegtable oils used for wood are predominantly what is known as 'drying oils', that is they polymerise on exposure to air forming compounds, more soild than the oild they came from. These poymers can vary in hardness. Linseed 'drys' to form a fairly sof compound not really suited to guitar necks, although it does bring out the beauty of wood grain nicely. Best keep that for you furnature!

The best oil to use on an oiled guitar neck would be tung oil, or teak or danish oil, the latter two contain tung with drying agents to spped drying time. Iff necessary this can be thinned with 10% white spirit (turpentine substitute), to reduce its viscosity. You could use your gun stock oil(NOT gun oil) here also.

Wipe on a small quantity with a clean cloth, leave ten mins thaen wipe of the excess. Much better to do lots of small successive treetments than slap on a big load in one go!

This is the way to treat necks originally finised with oil,NOT varnish or laquer.

One comapany that makes guitars with oiled necks recommends polishing with wax furnature polish once or twice year! (I*nbez, I believe), if you do, choose one with a silicone additive, it will make your neck feel more slippy and fast afterwoods!

First off, WD40 is not guitar friendly.

Try www.juststrings.com

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Chet Feathers

Authorized TonePros Dealer
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I didn't Lose my mind, I traded it for this guitar.

My suggestion... Buy a bulk pack of 10 Fender super bullets or whatever for around £30 easy!


Also if you fancy sendin that WD40 my way i need to lube my room door

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A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. ~Leopold Stokowski~

When a string breaks change them all. WD40 bad for fret board don't use that. My .00001%

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Like CV says if a string breaks, change em all. if you are constantly breaking a certain string (or strings,) without much wear, find out why. it means something is wrong, frets, or saddles might have a bur or something. Fix the problem, in that case, the string breaks are a symptom of something else. If you are just wearing out a string through a lot of use, odds are the others are worn out too.

On the oil for fretboards. A lot of 'fretboard conditioners' are just mineral oil. This includes, 'lemon oil' which is just scented mineral oil, and almost all 'bore oil' formulations, which a lot of people suggest. I stay away from those , like the above poster stated. For a maple board, i only keep it clean, it is lacquered, or poly-coated from the factory, and won't need any special attention. For my rosewood,(ebony, or any of the darkwoods, i guess,) fretboards, I use Linseed oil.It won't soften the wood unless you slop it on like crazy, and leave it on for a long time. just apply a small amount withe the end of a q-tip, let sit a couple minute then clean off. i work two or three fret areas at a time, being careful to not soak the fret slots.Do not use Boiled Linseed Oil. Boiled Linseed Oil has its composition changed, its not really boiled anymore, but that is a bigger topic, than I need to go into here. I got a small bottle of raw 'Linseed Oil' at a hardware store somewhere around 18 or 20 years ago. it is still almost full (like 80%-and I spilled it once,) you don't need a lot, and I only condition the fretboard 2 times a year. If you don't have drastic winters, you probably only need to do it once a year. Because of the weather, I do my set up 2 times a year, and that's when I condition the fretboard.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

go on...sucumb to the logic of our advice...

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A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. ~Leopold Stokowski~

I use www.stringbusters.com and they do single strings at 80p each for Ernie Ball, for example.

Everyone here is right: lay off the WD40. Maple necks are already lacquered and shouldn't need any treatment except an occasional clean when you do take all the strings off.

wipe your strings down after every use. don't be afraid to wipe the fretboard at the same time.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I generally buy my electric string sets from Musician's Friend, mostly because the local stores stopped stocking the .010/.038 set that I use. I also like to have a bunch of extra single strings around because if I've been playing aggresively, I might break a string on a set that is still pretty new.

Over Christmas, the local GC was selling on clearance six packs of D'Addario 9-42 sets that also included a D'Addario pint glass.

How cool is that for $15??

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...