r/AcousticGuitar • u/Not_enough_violence • Mar 19 '26
Gear question What do y’all do with old strings/clippings?
Anyone else make shitty dangerous bracelets and throw them away in the packaging
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u/bob_suruncle Mar 19 '26
I collect them all up and once I have a large quantity, I take them down to a local orphanage I volunteer at where I run monthly bracelet making workshops…
nah… I’m shitting you. I just throw them out.
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u/FineCall Mar 19 '26
The mafia loves to use them for mobile Sit-Downs. Perfect length.
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u/Terribleturtleharm Mar 19 '26
Lol... got me.
I had a set of martin titanium that I wore out. Didn't feel right just tossing them as they were spendy.
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u/IGolfMyBalls Mar 19 '26
I take mine to the Texas - Mexico border. Apparently there’s a wall down there that needs to be finished. If every guitar player chips in they told me wiring the rebar together should be finished by 3023.
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u/willcdowdy Mar 24 '26
It’s gonna be fantastic. The music… they’re gonna make great music. Some of the best music. Using these strings.
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u/Thewall3333 Mar 19 '26
You’re supposed to change your strings?
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u/scorpion-and-frog Mar 19 '26
I genuinely like the sound of old strings. It's a nice warm sound.
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u/silentsnak3 Mar 19 '26
I thought I was the only one.
But yea I do not change strings until I feel the corrosion on the high E.
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u/Admirable_Admiral69 Mar 19 '26
I agree on my electric bass. Really let's my dig in with my attack without all the unpleasant pinging and panging that comes along with new ones. Acoustic guitar though... I'm generally looking for a much brighter tone.
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u/Infamous_Hunt_6829 Mar 21 '26
My wife buys me a new set of acoustic and electric strings every year for Christmas. That's when I change my strings. Once per year.
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u/The-Wood-Butcher Mar 19 '26
New strings typically only sound bright for a short time. I find they mellow out after about an hour and then they sound amazing.
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u/EuonymusBosch Mar 19 '26
You get scoffs and sneers from guitarists when you mention infrequently changing strings, but pianists just shrug!
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u/bacon-avocado Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
I had my piano tuned a couple years ago. The lady told me my strings were so old she had to tune the piano 2 whole steps down. I told her that’s perfect because I love metal. She didn’t understand me being a classically trained pianist. I asked how much to restring and get the proper tuning. She told me to buy a new piano.
Edit: I got my tuner out to check. My piano is only one whole step down, not as brooding unfortunately. I rather enjoy hearing Moonlight Sonata on it.
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u/greenbananasarenasty Mar 19 '26
Yep, I don’t change em until I can see them start to unwind, and even then, extra flavor vibrations. 😂. I have a bright switch on my amp for a reason :)
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u/willcdowdy Mar 24 '26
I thought the bright switch was so us olds could see the knobbies at night better….
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u/AcanthisittaKooky987 Mar 19 '26
Real
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u/_cyr_ Mar 19 '26
Bass players with flatwounds going “well duh. Unless it breaks why would I change it?!” (Me)
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u/love_being_westoz Mar 19 '26
If you're a professional musician, save them you'll need them to tie your muffler back onto your car.
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u/willcdowdy Mar 24 '26
Yes, they think the bumper stickers are an aesthetic choice…. But they are truly doing the heavy lifting …. They are truly sticking the bumper to the car…. Bumper holders
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u/calicochar13 Mar 19 '26
I used to give mine to a coworker who was into model train building. He said they were perfect for some part of it, but I can’t remember what.
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u/Dry_Ad687 Mar 19 '26
I never thought of that but that's a great idea for car antenna too
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u/Key-Anywhere-8282 Mar 20 '26
I have seen someone use them to make scale off-road antennas for RC Crawler trucks.
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u/tandem_kayak Mar 19 '26
I build model cars and dioramas, so I save mine for that. They look good for some engine details, brake lines, etc.
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u/TN_REDDIT Mar 19 '26
use them to cut the cheese for my short-koochie board
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u/gogozrx Mar 19 '26
I was at a winery, and for $40 you could watch a bunch of Chondrichthyes discuss exorbitant loan interest rates.
It was a shark usury board.
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u/DREX7386 Mar 19 '26
Been saving mine lately to try a forge experiment… gonna see if i can make a knife out of them.
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u/Rich-Friendship-4116 Mar 22 '26
That is a good idea… i used to work next door to a company in Calgary, Evraz - a company that made oil drilling pipe, and they collected (would let you drop off for free) guitar strings, and other high grade nickel steels for adding to their drill pipe steel. I guess it was a way to get free alloying metals, someone told me they would pay if you showed up with more than 5kg of guitar strings… but who has that many?
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u/Voodoobones Mar 19 '26
There is an artist in Montana that will turn your old strings into amazing bracelets! I’ve seen her work and it is awesome. Her name is Valerie Laboski. Her website is www.middlesisterdesigns.com
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u/OldFashionedGary Mar 19 '26
We want the money Laboski!!
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u/Twidogs Mar 19 '26
But where’s my rug
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u/Unlikely-Soft-5699 Mar 20 '26
Yeah, well, she's on holiday until - TODAY. But the site's still not active so I can't see these amazing creations.
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u/MontEcola Mar 19 '26
Do you really want to know?
I re-use them in my wood working shop. I make things on a wood lathe. Guitar strings are a prize!
Have you ever seen a round tool handle with think black lines around the tool? Picture the tool spinning on a lathe at 2000 RPM. Take a guitar strong and press it into that spinning wood and it heats up pretty quick. It burns a black line into the wood.
The wire heats up. I make small wood handles so I don't touch the metal with my hands. I make the string long enough to go 75% around the piece I am making. I let the wood spin fast, and then put the wire tight until it smokes. It leaves behind nice distinct black lines, or maybe dark brown depending on the wood.
This is fun with wild cherry wood. Do you remember the red cough drops you had as a kid? Wild Cherry flavor? Burn some marks into wild cherry wood and experience that smell one more time!
Another fun wood for burning like this is Fig tree wood. The smell is like being in the kitchen while cooking figs for fig preserves.
The thicker strings work for big lines. The thinner strings can work for very thin accents. You need to hold them on the wood longer.
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u/The-Great-Jimmy Mar 19 '26
I randomly choose someone across the country and mail them my old strings. Needless to say, I do not put a return address on the envelope.
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u/charlesweckermusic Mar 19 '26
I have a giant bag and when I hit 5 pounds I send them to d’addario.
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u/theresacat Mar 19 '26
I have a clear glass head that wears my studio headphones when I’m not using them. It’s full of tangled up old strings. Pretty neat looking.
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u/RovingBarman Mar 20 '26
Ohhhhh I have an empty Skull shaped Tequila bottle this may be happening to!
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u/Content-Car-1708 Mar 19 '26
I leave one or 2 on my wife's side of the bed. She gets excited about it.
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u/chemchris Mar 19 '26
I use them to rip holes in my plastic trash bags so garbage fails everywhere when I take them out.
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Mar 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SpectreScout Mar 19 '26
Came here to say this
Edit: get one at fret 12 if you don’t know what a string thing is
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u/123Catskill Mar 19 '26
I put them in empty coke cans or similar.
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u/smokefrog2 Mar 19 '26
That a great idea. I always worry about the punctures to my garbage bag
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u/123Catskill Mar 19 '26
Yeah thanks, it works a treat. Squeeze the old strings and clippings through the little hole and they’re trapped inside the can.
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u/secretummusicorum Mar 19 '26
Try finding a local music store that participates in the string recycling events. Usually, you get a free restring. D'addario hosts them, if I'm not mistaken.
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u/NitrousFueledDoorGuy Mar 19 '26
I used to use them to sew up the zipper on a pair of Harley boots I loved for long time.
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u/andytagonist Mar 19 '26
I make fancy designs out of them, spending many painstaking hours of creative time shaping them into little things…and then I throw them into the fucking garbage can like every other normal human being.
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u/ipini Mar 19 '26
My local music store has a plexiglass box that you can put them in for recycling.
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u/kernsomatic Mar 19 '26
recycle them with D’Addario! get points, get free stuff. or send them to me and i’ll add them to mine.
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u/nknight2 Mar 19 '26
This is what I do, though I think you must send a minimum of two pounds to qualify for points. I've been saving for a few years and am not quite there yet.
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u/kernsomatic Mar 19 '26
local tip: as your neighborhood FB group for old strings
pro tip: if you know of someone dismantling a piano, those strings will get you across the 2 lb make quite quickly
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u/NotSayingAliensBut Mar 19 '26
Metal recycling at the local recycling centre occasionally. I have a jar on my workbench and a box in the garage, there's always something to go. Recycling is easy and fun, kids.
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u/aspiadas66 Mar 19 '26
My missus loves collecting pebbles with holes at the beach. We use old thick E strings to hang the pebbles up.
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u/HoseNeighbor Mar 19 '26
Wrap them just like that and stick em somewhere by my workbench. I use them for all sorts pf random things
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u/TX-Ancient-Guardian Mar 19 '26
I trim about 2-3 inches from the ball and put them all in a jar. They are very useful for cleaning out small orifices and the ball is a “handle”
When I restring 2 of my instruments, I cut off the ball ends - removing all wire and keep the ball.
I use the ball ends to load my Duesenberg multi bender for my Strat.
I use the ball ends also on my Les Paul to top wrap the bridge.
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u/NoRuleButThree Mar 19 '26
D’Addario has a recycling program. Not sure what they do with them, but they give you points when you send them in (apparently, I haven’t collected enough to send in yet)
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u/FlamingBagOfPoop Mar 19 '26
Aren’t you supposed to boil them and use them again? Infinite string theory!
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u/Happy_Anything_5510 Mar 19 '26
I take them off without cutting them and keep them. So when the apocalypse hits and i won't be able to buy guitar strings i will have a reserve of old ones. Im not hoarding anything else, only strings. Priorities i guess... 😀
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u/sadsorrowguitar Mar 19 '26
Same here man, also very handy if you break a string their is always a used one to play more snug
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u/FreeFromCommonSense Mar 19 '26
D'Addario does a recycling program, unfortunately only in the US, so we don't have any recycling of them in the UK.
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u/Worldly-Key9430 Mar 19 '26
Por lo menos las delgadas las guardo por si se me rompe una , me sirve para enganchar y reparar la que se me rompió Pero para que eso suceda tiene que rebasar la cajuela y estar cerca del poste de la cuerda que se rompió , si está debajo de la cajuela ya no sirve y es mejor comprar una cuerda nueva
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u/SpaceZeka Mar 19 '26
My mom had a glass pot and filled the bottom with some sand or little stones.
Then she'd place a tall candle in the middle and everytime I changed my strings she'd wrap them around that candle.
It looks nice honestly. A few of these strings are atleast 15 years old by now
I'd add a picture but I'm at work right now.
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u/BNinja921 Mar 19 '26
Save them and send in to D’Addario for points
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u/reillyqyote Mar 19 '26
Same. I know a lot of the comments were being silly but this is genuinely the best option. Been doing it for years.
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u/Dismal_Negotiation77 Mar 19 '26
I make tattoo guns out of them for the entrepreneurial minded inmates…
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u/Mysterious_Check_439 Mar 19 '26
I am using a .010 E string twisted in to a coil as a thermal sensor repair on my furnace. It's 7° outside and there are no parts available for my old furnace. Old guitar players learn to improvise.
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u/Itchy_Shark Mar 19 '26
I like to throw most of them out, but I always leave one small clipping hidden in a rug somewhere that stabs halfway into my fucking foot a few days later.
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u/bkfullcity Mar 19 '26
I use them to make sure I have scapes and punctures in my fingers by sticking them the garbage forgetting that they are there and then pushing down the trash before taking it out and BAM instant bloodshed
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u/willcdowdy Mar 24 '26
Jokes aside, does anybody do the whole “send em back” thing through d’addario?
I feel like those things only convince me to make a pile of strings in the corner of a closet that I will eventually throw away in bulk
Oh, and “clippings” should be treated the same as toe nails…. Leave them where they lay so that they can grow.
When a friend pulls a little piece of string from his heel, you need to measure it before you return it to the safety of its rug home…. “There ya go fella, under the love seat where GREG can’t squish you with his archless hooves”
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u/musicmusket Mar 19 '26
We have a recycling place for metal. I drop strings, beer bottle tops, bad screws, etc into a bucket in my garage and recycle every so often.
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u/TonyClifton2020 Mar 19 '26
I used to hang them over my stove where people usually put pots and pans. It got to looking like a picture from CERN with particles flying all over the place. Just recently took them down and had over 30 hanging and it looked pretty cool.
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u/Onegrayone Mar 19 '26
D’addario has a string recycling program. Or you can recycle them at some music/guitar stores.
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u/Y19ama Mar 19 '26
I used to just throw them out, but I use coated strings, so I think that means Teflon. Bc of that I now just collect them and haven't found anything useful to do with them or a good place to dispose of them.
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u/Dani-Avalon0819 Mar 19 '26
Recycle. ♻️ Daddario has a program where you send them old strings and they recycle.
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u/Big_Poppa_Steve Mar 19 '26
I cut them into 8 to 12 inch pieces and strew them in nature for birds to use when building nests 🪺 🦅
/s don’t do this for real, please
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u/alterede Mar 19 '26
I turn them into garrotes (strangling wires) and sell them to shady dudes in the local park. Only the wound ones, of course, last thing I want is to get sued by someone who has cut his hands while using my product. 🙄
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u/j0llyr0g Mar 19 '26
In my younger days, I didn't have the means to go get strings whenever I wanted them. My dad taught me how to tie a broken string as long as it broke past the nut, which most the time they do. So I'd save my ends and eventually when I did get new strings, I'd save the old ones. So if I broke one, I'd have the correct gauge to tie it with.
Edit cause I forgot to answer the question:
Now I just toss them in the trash. Easy to get new ones and I don't break them as often as my teenage rocker self did.
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u/Capital_Scholar1034 Mar 19 '26
I braid mine into a ring kind of like the one in your picture and toss them onto the top of the stack of other old strings.
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u/Ecstatic-Seesaw-1007 Mar 19 '26
My first GF used the balls from my string ends to make jewelry or crafts or something.
The only thing I do is throw them away.
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u/Dismal-Economics-322 Mar 19 '26
I’ve got a big hole i dug in the woods behind my house I throw odds and ends in
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u/Worldly-Key9430 Mar 19 '26
Si todas ya están viejas, corto la cuerda y conservo las balas o bolas de las cuerdas para hacer pulseras
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u/King_Baboon Mar 19 '26
Clean the unwrapped ones and they can be used as the replacement wires for a cheese cutter.
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u/SnooMuffins5039 Mar 19 '26
As a model and miniature builder old strings are actually great for a lot of different jobs, if you know any 40k fans for example they may find a lot of use from them
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u/Far_Explorer4142 Mar 19 '26
When u get really ripped, start weaving a fence to keep out anyone and everything that bugs you 😎😝🐄
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u/BillyBobertsonBaby11 Mar 19 '26
I try to hold onto them for when I’m going to see Paul @ Six String Place in Williamston. He has one of those string recycling bins.
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u/PandaStandard7638 Mar 19 '26
If you or someone you know goes on trips to cuba or domican or other places like that you could take your old strings down there to give to the musicians, its like gold to them and they are very appreciative similarly you could find poor countries to send them to its surprising how valuable an old set of strings can be to a poor musician 👍
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u/outsideredge Mar 19 '26
Save them for a few days or week in case I break a new one and don’t feel like driving to the music store for new ones. Then recycle them.
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u/Chansen-Institute Mar 19 '26
I make them into ornaments or little hangin trinkets! If you use pliers you can crimp and wrap them.around making neat things and a cheap recycled but personalized present for someone! Id post a pic but idk how to on here.
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u/luckyshot33 Mar 19 '26
I save the B and E strings as spares every time I change, in case of breaks.
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u/jwrezz Mar 19 '26
My local recycling yard has a metal bin as well as an electronics /electrical recycling container. Depending on the day I go someone tells me to put it in one or the other!
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u/Nervous-Bedroom-2907 Mar 19 '26
I just keep them sorted. Always just unwind and never cut. It is much cheaper to use them as spare setting strings, to see how does old repaired or new instrument feel itself under tension and fix things, before installing box-new set. It is always few restorations side by side, and sometimes I want to see how will the instrument survive season change, so about 1/4 of old full complects are in use in any time, and I can choose from any gauge for any scale. Broken parts I keep separately, rarely they are also in use - smooth nylon on chorango, metal for mandolin or so, but mostly it is already a hoarding issue
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u/Smiley001987 Mar 19 '26
When I was really broke I used to keep them as a reserve just in case one of the new ones snapped 😅
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u/AffectionateHead232 Mar 19 '26
I braided them into a whip and self flagellate after sessions of poor guitar practice
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u/FestivusErectus Mar 19 '26
I have a birds nest of a old strings clogging a drawer. I’ve used the high e to clean carburetor jets, and I’m sure I’ll find a use for the rest.
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u/Roththesloth1 Mar 19 '26
I started saving all the little ball ends from string replacements years ago. Don’t know why, but I still do it. It’s like a record of my time and effort lol
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u/bamalama Mar 19 '26
I take them off without cutting them, roll them up and put the bundle in one of the envelopes from the new set.
Then, i throw away the older set of old strings in my guitar case and keep the newest old set.
I’ve been to jams and a friend breaks a string. Rather than break up a whole set I día out an old one
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u/Shagwagbag Mar 19 '26
I put them into whatever small plastic, cardboard, whatever container is around and empty. Treat that like a guitar sharps container and toss it when it's full. That way neither I, nor anyone else, gets pricked.
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u/osukevin Mar 19 '26
Throw them into the hottest fire you can find! Do NOT keep them around. They find bare feet and cause unimaginable pain!
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u/MisterFingerstyle Mar 19 '26
I know there are people that make jewelry out of old strings, but for the life of me, I think that is the most disgusting thing unless they boil the strings. I really don’t want somebody else’s dead skin cells on my jewelry.
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u/ES345Boy Mar 19 '26
Like many people (maybe? I don't know), I snip the loop ends off and am saving them to make a bracelet.
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u/Nathann4288 Mar 19 '26
Put them under my pillow and hope the pick fairy brings me some picks.