Affordable semi-custom strings from mapes

[Avery Roberts]

UPDATE
Mapes strings are temporarily unavailable online. They say they'll be back soon. But what "soon" means could be a few months, or a few years or never.

Attachment 127136

WHAT THIS WAS ORIGINALLY ABOUT
Mapes was offering a string set with the following gauges: 048w 038w 028w 020w 018p 015p 011p 012p 013p. 9 strings in all.

But this wasn't for a 9 string guitar. It was to allow you to make a semi-custom set. Say you preferred a wound G instead of a plain G, then you had that choice. And if you preferred a heavier high e, you had two choices for that too. They were available in two types of wound strings, nickel or stainless steel. The stainless steel set sold for $3.30, the nickel plated for $4.40.

Mapes is primarily a wire mill that supplies raw wire to just about every U.S. manufacturer of guitar strings. If you have U.S. manufactured steel strings on your acoustic or electric guitar chances are 99% that the wire came from Mapes.

But Mapes also manufactures guitar strings under their own name or for other brands. So there's some chance that Mapes manufactured the strings you are playing now.

Mapes is the official supplier and manufacturer of piano strings for Steinway Pianos and it could be assumed that the guitar strings would be of similar quality.

Note: To manufacture a string means to cut the raw wire to length, wind a wrap of wire around it in the case of wound strings, or no wrap in the case of the plain strings, put a ball end on it, then coil it and insert it into an envelope.

Here's a video of their manufacturing facility:

disclaimer: I have no affiliation of any kind with Mapes. I am presenting this only as a "hey look at this" service to the membership.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I’m a bit confused. Once you pick the 6 you prefer, you’re buying 3 strings you’ll never use.

[RJVB]

FWIW, Pyramid also let you compose your own sets through their website, and will do "specialty" string orders, with optional hand-polishing at no extra cost (IIRC). Neither is particularly more expensive than buying their off-the-shelf sets. Not as dirt cheap as these strings from Mapes but those do look very much intended for electric blues, rock etc.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

For the novice player who doesn't have much experience with various string gauges, this Blues Set is a great educational tool. I recommend the following procedure:

Step 1: determine whether you like the wound G or the plain G.
(1) String up your guitar like this: 011, 015, 020w, 028w, 038w, 048w and play it for a week.
(2) Replace the 020w with the 018p, and play it for another week.
(3) At this point you should have a pretty good idea of which you like better, the plain or the wound.

Step 2: determine whether you would like a harder high e string.
(1) Replace the 011 with the 012 and play it for a week.
(2) Replace the 012 with the 013 and play it for a week.
(3) At this point you should have a pretty good idea of which you like better, the 011, the 012, or the 013.

Cheers and hope this helps,
Avery Roberts

Unfortunately, it’s not always that simple because of nut slot clearance. If a slot is too narrow, the string will bind. If it’s too wide, the string will not be stable, which is a common cause of “ghost” tones and assorted tonal oddities. The slot should be between 0.0015” and 0.003” wider than the string. A perfectly cut slot in a low friction material may be OK with 0.001”, but if it’s the slightest bit off axis or irregular it will need to be opened another thou or 2 and reshaped or realigned in the process.

If the existing nut was cut for 9-42, even some in the 11- 48 set will bind. A string too fat for the slot can even crack it. The worst problem is when the 6th is too tight, because that can crack off the outside lip.

Before fitting a larger string, check to be sure it contacts the slot bottom and is not just sitting on the edges. Put a little marking (like a tiny drop of graphite lock lube) at the bottom of the slot with a fine modeling paint brush and run the string back and forth through the slot like dental floss. If it doesn’t remove the color, the string is not at the bottom and the slot needs widening. If it’s only 2 or 3 thou, you can widen it by “flossing” it gently with a RW string on most nut materials. Move gently and perfectly in line with the string’s axis when on and tuned, because the slots also have shaped sides and you don’t want to alter that.

Another good way to check whether the string is at the slot bottom is to lay a length of ultrafine untaxed dental floss in the slot, seat the string over it, hold the string down firmly and have someone try to pull out the floss. If the string is fully seated, the floss will not budge. If it’s not, the floss wil easily slide out no matter how hard you press the string into the nut.

[Oscar67]

You get 9 strings in a package and the nice thing about that is that you get flexibility! If you like a heavy high E string, say an 013, you got it. Prefer a wound G? You got that too. Those are just two examples. There are other combinations you can come up with, and without the cost of buying extra single strings. The price (as of May 5 2024) is US$3.30 for the stainless steel set and US$4.40 for the nickel plated set.

Thanks for sharing this! I’ll likely order some to try.

[RJVB]

What busy schedule?

It seems that upsizing the high E string is standard operating procedure in the world of the Classical Guitar.

I'm not certain where this comes from but there are 2 things at play here:
- getting sufficient volume and sustain higher up the string
- these tensions are theoretical values that do not account for stretch!

Steel strings practically don't stretch when you tune them up and thus don't drop sufficiently in gauge that their tension at pitch is meaningfully lower than the calculated one.
Anyone who has played nylon, carbon or Aquila Sugar strings in particular knows that new strings can easily drop a tone or more over a few hours and will continue to do so over days. If memory serves me well, I once measured over 25% decrease in the sounding length after I took a (finally stabilised) Sugar E1 string off (I had marked the nut and saddle contact points).
It is a public secret that the working (at pitch) tensions of esp. the unwound strings are lower than the ones specified, and that this is the main reason why one manufacturer's "extra-high tension" is barely another manufacturer's "high tension". The thinner the string, the more it stretches.
For illustration, here are 2 of Aquila's references; like everyone they specify the theoretical tensions but they do design their sets to a more or less identical tension-at-pitch across strings:

Aquila Sugar HT
# kg gauge (mm)
e 9.1 .69
b 7.2 .82
g 6.7 1.00
D 7.1 .76 ext
A 7.2 .95 ext
E 6.7 1.16 ext

Aquila Perla HT (AFAIK this is their offering in standard musical nylon):
e 8.2 .72
b 6.3 .84
g 5.9 1.03
D 7.1 .72 ext
A 7.9 .91 ext
E 7.3 1.12 ext

(data from https://aquilacorde.com/en/gauges-an...ssical-guitar/)

[RJVB]

Puzzling why they don't publish the actual working tensions. I would guess that most string manufacturers would have the precision tools to easily do that.

I never got a satisfying answer to that. Probably because it requires taking samples, putting them on a measuring device, waiting until the stabilise, etc. If you want to be really precise you'll also have to control (at least) temperature and humidity and document their reference values, rather than just document the scale length used for calculating the theoretical tensions. Add to that the fact that AFAIK only Aquila run their own extruders (so everyone else receives their monofilament string in bulk) and no one makes their own yarn for the wound strings. And even Aquila (the source of my info) don't report the working tensions ... basically because no one else does.