Go cut a section out of a wire coat hanger. Pick a spot in the middle and bend it back and forth several times. What happens?
It breaks. Remembering back to my materials class in engineering school, this is called work hardening of the material.
When you wind a string around the post, you bend it (duh). When you detune - take some windings off the post - the tension on the string straightens it back out. Tune back up and you are bending it again. Of course it breaks. If you were to seek a good way to break strings this would be it.
Do all the things everybody recommends, but if you detune/retune enough, you are going to break strings. Good excuse to buy more guitars!
|