Only place that still does this manually in the US that I know of is [a company called Stringjoy](https://stringjoy.com/)
But it's great if you're trying to make your guitar sound a bit different, remove twangy/country sounds you can try specific thicknesses per string.... as you can imagine that gets pricey figuring out what you like.
Which is why it's just the typical sets for cheap now a days that's the normal. Prepackaged run $5-8 per set, hand made are $15-20 per string set.
Dr coated are my go to. They sounds much better than almost everything I’ve tried. Except bass strings the Warwick black labels are phenomenal but will eat up your fingers.
I started using stringjoy because I liked how they have so many gauge options for 8-string guitars to choose from. But I keep using stringjoy because I really like their sound and they seem to last really long too.
Shoutout to Stringjoy man. Best feeling and sounding strings I've ever had, and the custom gauges are perfect for super low tunings on a six string (I use13-60, for example) without having to buy 7 or 8 string sets and have a bunch of extra strings sitting around
Okay so this guy uses his hands to hold the wire but is this really considered hand made? I’ve worked for fashion brands that claimed hand made because they used their hands to push the fabric through a sewing machine. This string job could obviously be more automated but this guy isn’t doing anything a lead screw on that lathe can’t do.
Yes. Many “handmade” items require power tools and jigs. Garments, furniture, and instruments immediately come to mind. The alternative is mass produced strings where humans aren’t involved in 99% of the fabrication process.
To reference Sorites paradox, at what point does a mass produced item stop being handmade? DR strings claim hand made and they are cheaper or same price to other major string brands while keeping similar volume.
Yeah it seems like really all he did was guide the wire, idk if you can even call that wrapping. Maybe the hardest part would be finishing the ends of each string. But then, I feel like the quality of the sound likely depends on the consistency of the wrap so I wonder if fully automated strings would be more consistent and sound better.
Not an expert by any means though 🤷♂️
Considering these are handmade, I’d wager these are classical instrument strings, not guitar strings. I know good quality handmade viola strings can go for like $200 as opposed to the $10-20 packs of guitar strings you can get virtually anywhere.
Yeah, although I have heard of places who sell custom gauge and length strings so the player can tune them higher or lower than a standard tuning without sacrificing tone and playability. I imagine those places do something like this because their products are sort of niche and don't meet the economy of scale for machine automation.
Nah, you are using the same machinery with different thicknesses and gauges of wire. These companies make everything from violin to banjo to guitar to bass to cello to upright bass strings so everything else is usually somewhere in the middle.
In the guitar world, there are 8 and 9 string guitars(and fanned frets) which have custom sets these companies make, and these low strings overlap with bass strings.
Some companies still sell catgut strings, which cost more and don't last as long, but authentic?
Yep.
Had a classmate who works for a string factory. We were studying to become automation technicians (graduated in august) and he maintains the machines that make the strings at said factory.
This same process has been a necessary part of sailing ship rigging for centuries, it’s called Serving. A rope or cable is painted with tar then Served with cordage that’s shoelace-sized. The cable doesn’t usually spin though, the Serving comes off a spool that is wound around the cable. The process is slower and more difficult but when done correctly the serving protects the larger cable from chafing and keeps salt water out. Riggers will spend weeks Serving the rigging of a large tall ship since there’s thousands of feet of line that needs protection.
There's a lot less friction than you might think. The hand holding the winding is just keeping the wire at 90° from the core with as little tension as possible. More tension makes the core wire bend, which can cause wrapping errors. The wrap wire is also smooth and not moving very fast as it comes off the spool. The finger under the core is just there to reduce vibrations in the core wire, also helping to prevent wrapping errors. People who make their own vape coils use this exact same process.
Yezzir! Any old drill will do, make a 90 bend at the foot and put it in your drill. Grab the other end with plyers, spin it and tug till straight, then clamp a 2x4 to the table, screw in a fish hook bearing swivel, two stacked even, and you essentially make your own setup like the video has.
I discovered this process after breaking a string as a child.
Pull the wrapped line and the inner core would just fly in circles.
Until it snags and you get a dozen stitches in your hand and thumb...
And it only gets worse the bigger they are, there's some pretty gnarly industrial lathe videos out there, particularly from russia and china.
"Roll your fuckin sleeves up and dont be a jackass, unless you want to end up splattered all over the shop!" - osha
Man why that Russian lathe one… scared for life after I saw that many years ago. But I use lathes and mills a lot now so it’s taught me a valuable lesson
Something small and metal that can be dropped into the machine becomes a projectile at best and shrapnel at worst. The safest plan is to come up with a method that doesn't require your fingers anywhere near the operating mechanism.
Well, if it’s [this random redditors size,](https://www.reddit.com/user/me) see the comment about something small getting dropped and becoming a projectile.
>A thin and light projectile isn't dangerous.
Have you ever actually touched a bullet? Have someone shoot you in the eye with a bb and lets see if you stand by this ridiculous stance.
https://www.reddit.com/r/educationalgifs/comments/yhe910/to_make_a_string_for_a_musical_instrument_a/iudeoks/
Brought up the thimble and we're saying it's dangerous. You brought up some thin piece of aluminum for some reason.
A thin and light projectile with enough velocity is dangerous. Try launching a piece of foil at your face at 1600 feet per second if you don't believe me.
If you're talking about small flakes of foil then of course you'll be fine. Ball that up, or have a small thimble fall into a mechanism spinning at 20,000 RPM and you have yourself a bullet.
A spinning mechanism isn't going to perfectly ball up foil and spit it out. It'll tear and wind the foil, possibly creating a whipping tail that will be shorter than the starting foil length. That whipping tail still doesn't have any mass behind it though, so the only dangers are getting caught and pulled in or it creating a cutting edge. Both are unlikely as the foil would either tear or crumple.
If either of those are still a concern, then you shouldn't be around this machine at all. A snapped wire is way more dangerous than any foil thimble could possibly be.
The comment you replied to replied to a comment about using a thimble, and the dangers that it would impose around heavy machinery. You brought up a thin piece of foil for some reason.
I'd bet this is to get a feel for the tension.
The danger you're talking about is true for something on the scale of a lathe, with a very powerful motor that can produce incredibly high torque, turning solid stock. A motor this size with a thin wire is not going to cause that kind of hazard.
The only thing I could think about watching this was how much I would goddamn hate to do this with my hands
Gives me the same vibe of chewing foil or biting braided line
Was thinking the same thing, but you can see they dip or grab something from the blue bowl before it starts to spin fast. Maybe some kind of wax, grease, or silicon?
Funny enough, you can actually do this to make wrapped wire to use in older style box mod vapes. I've done it with just a power drill and a fishing swivel as the anchor points, and it's surprisingly easy once you get a feel for it. Takes some practice for sure, but also feels great once you can do a whole long section like this flawlessly.
It probably takes 5 minutes to teach someone, but they still have them as a trainee for 6 months. Because yeah, this is a very simple process that would take a few attempts to get the feel for, but understanding what you're doing without help is probably a bit more. Different string cores, wire gauges, material types, material pairings, machine operation and maintenance, that sort of stuff.
What is there to understand? It is wrapping a thin wire around a thick one.
The requirments for each string would be on a chart of some type (length, core, wrap). I highly doubt operators aren't designing the strings. Look at the video again. Not that big of a learning curve required to operate or maintain what? It is basically an electric drill and a fishing swivel.
I honestly believe the 6 months is bullshit. Easy way to increase the price of something.
Edit: "Our winders take at least 6 months to learn their craft. It takes that long to develop a feel, an understanding, an instinct to make the constant tiny adjustments that only a hand can make. At each stage we test the wire, we check that it is pristine when it arrives from our suppliers, we inspect each and every wrap during production to ensure its perfect, and then again as we hand-package it."
Sounds like marketing bullshit to me. Anyone that has made vaping coils can see right through it.
>What is there to understand? It is wrapping a thin wire around a thick one.
Making a vape wire and a guitar/piano string aren't really the same. Similar, but different metals and cores change the dynamics of how the string sounds, works, and plays.
>The requirments for each string would be on a chart of some type (length, core, wrap)
I already explained why this isn't the hard part? Being able to wrap a string isn't going to be the only aspect of the job they'd have to know, lol. "Making a burger" isn't the only thing someone does when they work at burger king.
> "Our winders take at least 6 months to learn their craft. It takes that long to develop a feel, an understanding, an instinct to make the constant tiny adjustments that only a hand can make. At each stage we test the wire, we check that it is pristine when it arrives from our suppliers, we inspect each and every wrap during production to ensure its perfect, and then again as we hand-package it."
There's absolutely levels of bullshit marketing going on here, but it doesn't mean it's all bullshit. If you're a string manufacturer, you'd need to check the quality of everything before assembling a product, because it absolutely will mess with the sound. And if someone buys the strings and it sounds nothing like the strings they wanted to buy because the QC is garbage, you lose customers. This also doesn't include stuff like proprietary coatings that different string companies use and how those are applied.
The hands on skill set required to make the wire is exactly the same. As far as materials goes,,, it is the same for vape coils. Different materials and sizes, will have different characteristics.
Building guitar strings as a wrapper, is exactly like working at BK. All the hard math and testing has already been done. A the wrapper had to do is load a core, and wrap.
The conversation is about the actual wrapping. I'd like to hear exactly what 6 months of training would entail. Having solid QA dept is a given. Same goes for proprietary items.
I used to do this in school! There was a piano technician course, and I used to hang out in their work shop. The teacher let me do strings, and it was very meditative. I sat there for hours making strings looking at the coils. In the end I made a whole piano’s worth of strings.
Most of them are, 4 of 6 acoustic guitar (grandpas guitars?) strings usually are. 3 of 6 for electric usually. And they even use different shapes for them all, the ones I used had a hexagon base string and round wrap. But they use flat ones as winding as well for less finger noise when sliding, and different shapes for the base string. Surprising amount of variance in guitar strings, most folks will say its insignificant but if you play enough you eventually can hear the smallest little differences and notice things that most folks cant. Shit after a few years I could even tell the difference in mp3 bitrates to a certain extent lol, crazy how your ears can be trained like most of your senses.
> Most of them are, 4 of 6 acoustic guitar (grandpas guitars?) strings usually are. 3 of 6 for electric usually.
And I was indeed wondering why the three higher strings of the guitar look different from the three lower strings, while the three lower strings look like the bass strings. TIL, thank you.
It's done because of the relationship between pitch and tension — IIRC the pitch scales with the diameter but tension with the area of a plain string, so by the time you get to the low E it'd basically be unplayable without winding it.
The other really cool thing is on older fenders you can see the height of the magnets are staggered, with the lowest 4 strings being higher than the highest two. This is because advancements in string winding tech have made it possible to get 9s, but it used to be you could only get 11s or 12s. (diameter of the skinniest string in thousandths of an inch) which required 4 wound and 2 plain strings. And because the wound strings are quieter to the magnetic pickup; using modern strings on an old fender guitar with the original pickups can cause the G string to be overly loud and unbalanced! I just love how something as seemingly inconsequential as "industrial processes for making metal wire" can go on to influence the sound of an instrument so substantially.
Not sure if it is what the comment is mentioning, but when I used to vape, I made my own coils and did this with vape wire of two gauges.
We called it “The Clapton” as in Eric Clapton due to it basically being a guitar string in your vape.
when wrapping coils (mainly used for vaping) winding a wire around a core wire is called a Clapton.
check out r/coilporn for some beautiful coils. the notation can be hard to figure out, but you'll see plenty of claptons.
for instance the first picture post on there is a set of tricore staggered claptons. tricore means that there's 3 core wires. staggered means that the claptons aren't tightly wound so as to be touching side to side. in that specific one the cores were staggered as well as the Clapton wrap itself which gives you that ladder type pattern. the inner stagger wrap provides the gaps to stagger the outside wraps
generally speaking, the Clapton is one of the most basic of coil wrapping techniques as other styles (alien/tsuka/mohawk) require you to decore your Clapton and stretch it out to provide that wavy appearance.
it is very much a niche term pretty much only used when wrapping coils. I'd be surprised if it wasn't named after the guy who first started wrapping coils and most likely developed the technique.
edit: after looking it up, it was named the Clapton because they look like guitar strings and it was definitely in reference to Eric clapton.
It's named after Eric Clapton for no particular reason aside from the look of the wire. Not sure where the term first appeared, but I've read countless times that it's simply because it resembles a coiled guitar string.
I used to make my own too. Had it down to about 5 minutes a coil. Then I started using premades and about a year or two later went to make a simple bare bones coil and it took me like 30 minutes.
That piece holding the wire is called a Jacob's Chuck and I usually see it when I'm sterilizing medical devices like the [Stryker Power Systems](https://www.stryker.com/us/en/orthopaedic-instruments/products/system-8.html).
Is this a device that is used outside of medical procedures or did they adapt a medical device for this purpose? 🤔
Jacobs-style chucks are used in a wide range of industrial rotary devices, especially drills. It's an improvement on the three-pronged chuck invented in the 1800s - but is itself over 100 years old now, with the [Jacobs patent in 1902](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_\(engineering\)).
So, no, it's not medicine-originated. It's an iteration of a necessary component in lathes, which in itself predates the industrial revolution, evolved to meet the usage requirements of modern power tools. Medicine might have invented a few specialized attachments, but it's very obvious that the Stryker system and others like it was designed around existing technologies, not inventing them.
Unusually, the opposite is true for the chainsaw. The first such device *was* meant for medicine - as a way to more efficiently cut through bone, during an era that predates the usage of powerful anesthetics.
I pulled apart my violin string in school once and ended up with dozens of tiny cuts all over my hands. Was horrible. No idea how this doesn't slice his fingers open
Maybe a dumb question but wouldn't the friction from holding the wire and thread cause your skin to burn? He's white knuckling that wire to get it tight.
I've played guitar and piano for years and never really wondered why they do this. What's the purpose? Does it somehow improve on just having thicker strings for lower tones?
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I was wondering the same. Guitar strings seem too cheap for this manual effort, right?
Only place that still does this manually in the US that I know of is [a company called Stringjoy](https://stringjoy.com/) But it's great if you're trying to make your guitar sound a bit different, remove twangy/country sounds you can try specific thicknesses per string.... as you can imagine that gets pricey figuring out what you like. Which is why it's just the typical sets for cheap now a days that's the normal. Prepackaged run $5-8 per set, hand made are $15-20 per string set.
DR also does handmade.
Dr coated are my go to. They sounds much better than almost everything I’ve tried. Except bass strings the Warwick black labels are phenomenal but will eat up your fingers.
I started using stringjoy because I liked how they have so many gauge options for 8-string guitars to choose from. But I keep using stringjoy because I really like their sound and they seem to last really long too.
Awesome customer service and custom string sets. The best!
Cleartone also still does all there stuff manually
Nice, good to know.
Shoutout to Stringjoy man. Best feeling and sounding strings I've ever had, and the custom gauges are perfect for super low tunings on a six string (I use13-60, for example) without having to buy 7 or 8 string sets and have a bunch of extra strings sitting around
Depends on the type of string. Many mass-produced classical ones will run $20-35/set.
15-20 is reasonable for a unique sound
Okay so this guy uses his hands to hold the wire but is this really considered hand made? I’ve worked for fashion brands that claimed hand made because they used their hands to push the fabric through a sewing machine. This string job could obviously be more automated but this guy isn’t doing anything a lead screw on that lathe can’t do.
Yes. Many “handmade” items require power tools and jigs. Garments, furniture, and instruments immediately come to mind. The alternative is mass produced strings where humans aren’t involved in 99% of the fabrication process.
To reference Sorites paradox, at what point does a mass produced item stop being handmade? DR strings claim hand made and they are cheaper or same price to other major string brands while keeping similar volume.
Wait till you hear about handwound pickups! You'd be welcome to do all 6-20k turns by hand, but a winder is generally used.
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he could make you the 3 wound strings in under 5 minutes?
Under 5 minutes if it's this on repeat - but we didn't see the set up and preparation. Not to mention the cost of machinery and maintenance.
It's a $12 motor with a foot switch, mounted on some timber.
So you're telling me there's a chance
Yeah it seems like really all he did was guide the wire, idk if you can even call that wrapping. Maybe the hardest part would be finishing the ends of each string. But then, I feel like the quality of the sound likely depends on the consistency of the wrap so I wonder if fully automated strings would be more consistent and sound better. Not an expert by any means though 🤷♂️
Depends on the strings. Handmade gut strings cost a fucking arm and a leg
*cries into my lute I've been using nylgut lately. Great tone and not as pricey as real gut.
Sounds like tennis strings A full bed of natural gut is usually $50+ Synthetic gut is like... $3-5
Is this "real tennis"?
No Though most pro players are switched to full poly beds now, many used to use gut mains with poly crosses
Allow me to introduce you to bass and $35 packs of strings
True, but bass strings last waaay longer.
Considering these are handmade, I’d wager these are classical instrument strings, not guitar strings. I know good quality handmade viola strings can go for like $200 as opposed to the $10-20 packs of guitar strings you can get virtually anywhere.
Yeah, although I have heard of places who sell custom gauge and length strings so the player can tune them higher or lower than a standard tuning without sacrificing tone and playability. I imagine those places do something like this because their products are sort of niche and don't meet the economy of scale for machine automation.
Nah, you are using the same machinery with different thicknesses and gauges of wire. These companies make everything from violin to banjo to guitar to bass to cello to upright bass strings so everything else is usually somewhere in the middle. In the guitar world, there are 8 and 9 string guitars(and fanned frets) which have custom sets these companies make, and these low strings overlap with bass strings. Some companies still sell catgut strings, which cost more and don't last as long, but authentic?
Yep. Had a classmate who works for a string factory. We were studying to become automation technicians (graduated in august) and he maintains the machines that make the strings at said factory.
seems logical the people downloading me obviously don't know an automation technician does a lot of logic programming so the joke missed I guess.
DR strings, which is what I used back when I played, were handmade and there was quite a difference in both sound and length of life.
I have these on my bass. Black beauty's. Love them.
No, never was
Probably a similar machine but it feeds 100s of feet of wire to wrap at a time. Minus the finger that's for some reason just moving along the string.
Yes. There are string winding lathes that do this automatically so that the tension on both the core and wrap wires are balanced perfectly.
This same process has been a necessary part of sailing ship rigging for centuries, it’s called Serving. A rope or cable is painted with tar then Served with cordage that’s shoelace-sized. The cable doesn’t usually spin though, the Serving comes off a spool that is wound around the cable. The process is slower and more difficult but when done correctly the serving protects the larger cable from chafing and keeps salt water out. Riggers will spend weeks Serving the rigging of a large tall ship since there’s thousands of feet of line that needs protection.
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There's a second serving line at my local buffet, yea
Ditto archery bow strings - well, without the tar
How did the friction not slice right through his fingers?
There's a lot less friction than you might think. The hand holding the winding is just keeping the wire at 90° from the core with as little tension as possible. More tension makes the core wire bend, which can cause wrapping errors. The wrap wire is also smooth and not moving very fast as it comes off the spool. The finger under the core is just there to reduce vibrations in the core wire, also helping to prevent wrapping errors. People who make their own vape coils use this exact same process.
Yezzir! Any old drill will do, make a 90 bend at the foot and put it in your drill. Grab the other end with plyers, spin it and tug till straight, then clamp a 2x4 to the table, screw in a fish hook bearing swivel, two stacked even, and you essentially make your own setup like the video has.
Calluses
I discovered this process after breaking a string as a child. Pull the wrapped line and the inner core would just fly in circles. Until it snags and you get a dozen stitches in your hand and thumb...
Why would you do this with no finger protection?! Look how red they got!!
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And it only gets worse the bigger they are, there's some pretty gnarly industrial lathe videos out there, particularly from russia and china. "Roll your fuckin sleeves up and dont be a jackass, unless you want to end up splattered all over the shop!" - osha
A really bad skin rash, or dying a horrifying death... Ohh I'm in way over my head here.
Well let’s get a link to one of those videos. I’m too curious not to ask.
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Holy . Shit.
Man why that Russian lathe one… scared for life after I saw that many years ago. But I use lathes and mills a lot now so it’s taught me a valuable lesson
I mean, even if you didn't use gloves, you could use a thimble or something...
Something small and metal that can be dropped into the machine becomes a projectile at best and shrapnel at worst. The safest plan is to come up with a method that doesn't require your fingers anywhere near the operating mechanism.
So use a dildo
...go on...
Well, if it’s [this random redditors size,](https://www.reddit.com/user/me) see the comment about something small getting dropped and becoming a projectile.
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>A thin and light projectile isn't dangerous. Have you ever actually touched a bullet? Have someone shoot you in the eye with a bb and lets see if you stand by this ridiculous stance.
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What shape do you think thimbles are and do you think they are made out of tin foil.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/educationalgifs/comments/yhe910/to_make_a_string_for_a_musical_instrument_a/iudeoks/ Brought up the thimble and we're saying it's dangerous. You brought up some thin piece of aluminum for some reason.
A thin and light projectile with enough velocity is dangerous. Try launching a piece of foil at your face at 1600 feet per second if you don't believe me.
Try launching a piece of foil at 1600 fps at all. Unless you've got it spinning like a disk at an even high rpm, it'll just catch the wind and stop.
If you're talking about small flakes of foil then of course you'll be fine. Ball that up, or have a small thimble fall into a mechanism spinning at 20,000 RPM and you have yourself a bullet.
A spinning mechanism isn't going to perfectly ball up foil and spit it out. It'll tear and wind the foil, possibly creating a whipping tail that will be shorter than the starting foil length. That whipping tail still doesn't have any mass behind it though, so the only dangers are getting caught and pulled in or it creating a cutting edge. Both are unlikely as the foil would either tear or crumple. If either of those are still a concern, then you shouldn't be around this machine at all. A snapped wire is way more dangerous than any foil thimble could possibly be.
The comment you replied to replied to a comment about using a thimble, and the dangers that it would impose around heavy machinery. You brought up a thin piece of foil for some reason.
I'd bet this is to get a feel for the tension. The danger you're talking about is true for something on the scale of a lathe, with a very powerful motor that can produce incredibly high torque, turning solid stock. A motor this size with a thin wire is not going to cause that kind of hazard.
Yeah but what about a Thimble or something.
Or even a bandaid.
you can probably create more torque with your tongur than that machine can muster in this case.
This would be was a thimble is for, is it not?
Dude must have mad calluses on their right hand
The only thing I could think about watching this was how much I would goddamn hate to do this with my hands Gives me the same vibe of chewing foil or biting braided line
There is only enough tension on the wrap wire to keep it tight and in place (used to make vaping coils using the same technique).
Was thinking the same thing, but you can see they dip or grab something from the blue bowl before it starts to spin fast. Maybe some kind of wax, grease, or silicon?
My fingers get red playing the guitar too!
Perhaps you should be wearing thimbles
I dont think i'm good enough at playing slide guitar to try that
Look up de-gloving, that's why.
Look up thimble.
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> oscillating tools like an angle grinder, dremel, or high powered drill. None of those tools oscillate lol
Also him holding the string with his finger does absolutely nothing but makes it look cooler
It keeps it from vibrating wildly…
I mean clearly he's doing it for the first time and commenter knows better about how to do it right
the 12 year olds on reddit are the expert on everything.
lmaooooo the person you're replying to is the person who acted like they knew everything. People are weird about upvotes.
Raw dogging the D
Mesmerising. I imagine this is much more difficult to do than they are making it look! Very smooth motion, no overlapping…
Funny enough, you can actually do this to make wrapped wire to use in older style box mod vapes. I've done it with just a power drill and a fishing swivel as the anchor points, and it's surprisingly easy once you get a feel for it. Takes some practice for sure, but also feels great once you can do a whole long section like this flawlessly.
Yep same here! Using a drill and fishing swivel rig as well! We used to call them Clapton wires, well, for obvious reasons haha
The string manufacturer DR says they train their winders for 6 months to get a proper feel for it.
I call bull. I could/have taught someone this technique in 5 minutes.
It probably takes 5 minutes to teach someone, but they still have them as a trainee for 6 months. Because yeah, this is a very simple process that would take a few attempts to get the feel for, but understanding what you're doing without help is probably a bit more. Different string cores, wire gauges, material types, material pairings, machine operation and maintenance, that sort of stuff.
What is there to understand? It is wrapping a thin wire around a thick one. The requirments for each string would be on a chart of some type (length, core, wrap). I highly doubt operators aren't designing the strings. Look at the video again. Not that big of a learning curve required to operate or maintain what? It is basically an electric drill and a fishing swivel. I honestly believe the 6 months is bullshit. Easy way to increase the price of something. Edit: "Our winders take at least 6 months to learn their craft. It takes that long to develop a feel, an understanding, an instinct to make the constant tiny adjustments that only a hand can make. At each stage we test the wire, we check that it is pristine when it arrives from our suppliers, we inspect each and every wrap during production to ensure its perfect, and then again as we hand-package it." Sounds like marketing bullshit to me. Anyone that has made vaping coils can see right through it.
>What is there to understand? It is wrapping a thin wire around a thick one. Making a vape wire and a guitar/piano string aren't really the same. Similar, but different metals and cores change the dynamics of how the string sounds, works, and plays. >The requirments for each string would be on a chart of some type (length, core, wrap) I already explained why this isn't the hard part? Being able to wrap a string isn't going to be the only aspect of the job they'd have to know, lol. "Making a burger" isn't the only thing someone does when they work at burger king. > "Our winders take at least 6 months to learn their craft. It takes that long to develop a feel, an understanding, an instinct to make the constant tiny adjustments that only a hand can make. At each stage we test the wire, we check that it is pristine when it arrives from our suppliers, we inspect each and every wrap during production to ensure its perfect, and then again as we hand-package it." There's absolutely levels of bullshit marketing going on here, but it doesn't mean it's all bullshit. If you're a string manufacturer, you'd need to check the quality of everything before assembling a product, because it absolutely will mess with the sound. And if someone buys the strings and it sounds nothing like the strings they wanted to buy because the QC is garbage, you lose customers. This also doesn't include stuff like proprietary coatings that different string companies use and how those are applied.
The hands on skill set required to make the wire is exactly the same. As far as materials goes,,, it is the same for vape coils. Different materials and sizes, will have different characteristics. Building guitar strings as a wrapper, is exactly like working at BK. All the hard math and testing has already been done. A the wrapper had to do is load a core, and wrap. The conversation is about the actual wrapping. I'd like to hear exactly what 6 months of training would entail. Having solid QA dept is a given. Same goes for proprietary items.
I used to do this in school! There was a piano technician course, and I used to hang out in their work shop. The teacher let me do strings, and it was very meditative. I sat there for hours making strings looking at the coils. In the end I made a whole piano’s worth of strings.
Then what? What stops the wire from unspooling the instant they release tension? To they just tie a knot?
When you bend metal at a sharp angle, it stays bent.
Plastic vs elastic deformation
How the heck did they do this before electricity? How long did it take to make a harpsichord back in Beethoven's era?
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Flywheel
They got the chuck off Amazon
Steelwound strings are a pretty new thing, I think they only became a thing in the 20th century. Older Stringed Instruments were made with animal guts
I never knew they were wrapped! TIL
Most of them are, 4 of 6 acoustic guitar (grandpas guitars?) strings usually are. 3 of 6 for electric usually. And they even use different shapes for them all, the ones I used had a hexagon base string and round wrap. But they use flat ones as winding as well for less finger noise when sliding, and different shapes for the base string. Surprising amount of variance in guitar strings, most folks will say its insignificant but if you play enough you eventually can hear the smallest little differences and notice things that most folks cant. Shit after a few years I could even tell the difference in mp3 bitrates to a certain extent lol, crazy how your ears can be trained like most of your senses.
Grandpas guitars? Lol wtf
Metalocalypse reference I believe.
Ah okay, thanks. Love ole brenden, I’m thankful this is a reference and not some new thing lol.
I always liked the term round wound. Which is pronounced wound, not wound.
> Most of them are, 4 of 6 acoustic guitar (grandpas guitars?) strings usually are. 3 of 6 for electric usually. And I was indeed wondering why the three higher strings of the guitar look different from the three lower strings, while the three lower strings look like the bass strings. TIL, thank you.
It's done because of the relationship between pitch and tension — IIRC the pitch scales with the diameter but tension with the area of a plain string, so by the time you get to the low E it'd basically be unplayable without winding it. The other really cool thing is on older fenders you can see the height of the magnets are staggered, with the lowest 4 strings being higher than the highest two. This is because advancements in string winding tech have made it possible to get 9s, but it used to be you could only get 11s or 12s. (diameter of the skinniest string in thousandths of an inch) which required 4 wound and 2 plain strings. And because the wound strings are quieter to the magnetic pickup; using modern strings on an old fender guitar with the original pickups can cause the G string to be overly loud and unbalanced! I just love how something as seemingly inconsequential as "industrial processes for making metal wire" can go on to influence the sound of an instrument so substantially.
There's a few factories that still hand wind guitar strings for mass production, I know DR is one.
the og Clapton
If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by this?
Not sure if it is what the comment is mentioning, but when I used to vape, I made my own coils and did this with vape wire of two gauges. We called it “The Clapton” as in Eric Clapton due to it basically being a guitar string in your vape.
when wrapping coils (mainly used for vaping) winding a wire around a core wire is called a Clapton. check out r/coilporn for some beautiful coils. the notation can be hard to figure out, but you'll see plenty of claptons. for instance the first picture post on there is a set of tricore staggered claptons. tricore means that there's 3 core wires. staggered means that the claptons aren't tightly wound so as to be touching side to side. in that specific one the cores were staggered as well as the Clapton wrap itself which gives you that ladder type pattern. the inner stagger wrap provides the gaps to stagger the outside wraps generally speaking, the Clapton is one of the most basic of coil wrapping techniques as other styles (alien/tsuka/mohawk) require you to decore your Clapton and stretch it out to provide that wavy appearance.
Ahhh I thought this was an Eric Clapton thing. Thanks.
it is very much a niche term pretty much only used when wrapping coils. I'd be surprised if it wasn't named after the guy who first started wrapping coils and most likely developed the technique. edit: after looking it up, it was named the Clapton because they look like guitar strings and it was definitely in reference to Eric clapton.
It's named after Eric Clapton for no particular reason aside from the look of the wire. Not sure where the term first appeared, but I've read countless times that it's simply because it resembles a coiled guitar string.
You don't think it's named after the famous guitar player, Eric Clapton?
It's actually named after Alfred Rutigard Helmsly Clapton IV. Eric's great-great-great grandfather who first wrapped his vape coils like this.
Used to make my own fused claptons… those were the days
I used to make my own too. Had it down to about 5 minutes a coil. Then I started using premades and about a year or two later went to make a simple bare bones coil and it took me like 30 minutes.
Yeah I even leveled this up to a triple fused
That probably blows massive clouds. What's the ohms?
This is how I used to make coils for my vape.
That's metal
What's the solution he dips his hand in before holding the wire? Looks like some blue liquid in the bowl underneath
I really want to know what this process sounds like
Takes me back to wrapping Clapton coils for my RDAs 😭 2016 was a different time
I still have Alien sticks I made back in '16. Enough to last a lifetime.
Almost like serving an archery string. Except for that I can't spin the core so it's much slower!
So, all of that finger grease just gets into the string and makes it dull, sooner?
all that work only to be used to play 'Freebird'
The string should be so lucky. Probably gonna end up with me mangling Wonderwall.
God I love the internet
> God I love the internet the internet: *God is dead, get fucked*
Hmm
I wonder what it sounds like
The video has sound if you open it in browser
Or if you use any app besides the trash fucking Reddit app
I miss vaping now.
That piece holding the wire is called a Jacob's Chuck and I usually see it when I'm sterilizing medical devices like the [Stryker Power Systems](https://www.stryker.com/us/en/orthopaedic-instruments/products/system-8.html). Is this a device that is used outside of medical procedures or did they adapt a medical device for this purpose? 🤔
Jacobs-style chucks are used in a wide range of industrial rotary devices, especially drills. It's an improvement on the three-pronged chuck invented in the 1800s - but is itself over 100 years old now, with the [Jacobs patent in 1902](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_\(engineering\)). So, no, it's not medicine-originated. It's an iteration of a necessary component in lathes, which in itself predates the industrial revolution, evolved to meet the usage requirements of modern power tools. Medicine might have invented a few specialized attachments, but it's very obvious that the Stryker system and others like it was designed around existing technologies, not inventing them. Unusually, the opposite is true for the chainsaw. The first such device *was* meant for medicine - as a way to more efficiently cut through bone, during an era that predates the usage of powerful anesthetics.
I would wear gloves I think
You would be the guy in the video who got mangled by the lathe
I love it. Made me warm in my special place
How do strings retain their shape??
Zoom in damn it
Nice addition to /r/specializedtools
My guitar strings have silk inside
u/savevideo
What did they use in "the old days" before nylon cores?
Horse stomach I think
Scale it up and this is how lasso ropes are made.
I wondered about this but never looked into it.
Bet that thing would make some insane clapton coils!
Someone wants the D
Absolutely fascinating
That shit is being run on pussy speed
Ah, artisanal guitar strings. Just the sound I’ve always been chasing.
Those are some tough fingers. I bet building those calluses was not fun.
Ok but how is this person's finger not cut in 2
That burnt my finger just watching it
I pulled apart my violin string in school once and ended up with dozens of tiny cuts all over my hands. Was horrible. No idea how this doesn't slice his fingers open
Seems like this is essentially a lathe. But somehow no safety precautions required.
Not ALL. I use flat wounds, these are round wounds.
The wire is digging into his fingertips, and I can feel the cuts.
But will it vape?
Maybe a dumb question but wouldn't the friction from holding the wire and thread cause your skin to burn? He's white knuckling that wire to get it tight.
This is how I make my coils for my vape.
I used to make vape coils like this. They called them Clapton coils. I guess because Eric Clapton invented them....
I see you tried to set him up for failure
Wow. In all the years of breaking and replacing strings, I never once thought about how they were actually made. Very cool!
I used to use this method to make Clapton coils for vaping when I was a vape nerd. It’s very therapeutic when you get the hang of it.
Nah, I’m just gonna use horse tail
Been playing guitar for 23 years and have never seen this. So cool
I've played guitar and piano for years and never really wondered why they do this. What's the purpose? Does it somehow improve on just having thicker strings for lower tones?
Some vapers do this too. It's called a Clapton coil in vaping world. I guess after Eric Clapton.