Black guitar strings.

elduder

Hey guys, probably a stupid question.... But I changed my guitar strings the other night (Martin M175 Custom Light 011-052 Guitar Strings) and tuned it up and played it for a while as you do to keep it in tune.

The next day the strings had gone black over the sound hole from where I was picking and over the frets from where I was playing chords.

Do I have the most greasy acidy oily hands on the planet or are these strings crap. Now I do find I dont get alot of time outa strings because I do have sweaty hands...But more than a few hours come on!!!!!

Anybody have a similar problem.

novarock

from the thread title I thought "heres another guy into his metal that doesnt think his guitar is black enough"

Are the strings coated in something that might need to wear away?

And is it affecting the sound?

Quattroste

It's most likely just the sweaty hands. If you had a **** load of beer the night before this wont help either. Best thing is to clean your strings after you play. Just wipe them down with a cloth.

Having said that though there are some acoustic strings that I have used that blacken much quicker but I can't remember if they were martins. You could always try coated strings!

BSOM

M175's are not coated, this sometimes happens to strings when sweat/dirt builds up on them. The tone of the string and quality of sound wont be affected. You can do a couple of things:

1) Wipe down the strings after every play
2) Get some string cleaner from the like of Kyser (Dr. Stringfellow)
3) Some players (and im not advising this) use lighter fluid to clean their strings (just dont have any flames near the auld guitar).

J

Strings.ie

As others have said, always good to wipe down the strings after playing.

You might try the M535 which is the phosphor bronze version of M175.
Phosphor bronze tends to cope better with sweat than standard bronze.