The Steel Guitar Forum

After all the good points raised (and lowered) here, I might try a wound - been using 20p. And a picture's worth a thousand words: I always thought that arch must be enormous to cross the Mississipi...

That's nothing, I've walked across the Mississippi River.

Which bridge did you use, Erv?

I'm one of the couple b0b mentioned that uses an .024W. I started using wound because it helps overall tuning, and I settled on .024 because .022 was just too quiet in the chord voicing. It didn't speak evenly. The increased tension of the .024 brought the volume level up to even with the other strings. YMMV.

Roger,
I didn't need any bridge.
Up north in Minnesota you can just step across on the rocks sticking out of the water.

.020 plain. Seems I recall using a wound string back in the 60's and 70's when I played a Fender and then a Sho~Bud, but that was long ago and far away.

I wonder what an all plain set would sound like?All the way to a.038.Never seen one.Im sure somebody knows why.

I use a .022 Plain, on the 6th (G#) String. I tried a .022 Wound...back in the '70's. Once! I didn't like the sound, or the feel of a .022 Wound, at all.

I use a .22w because that is what came on my first sho bud. It was a cross over. I have a Sho Bud tuning chart and it list a .22w for the 6th string in the string chart. I like the sound of the .22w better and it stays in tune better for me. I dont lower the 6th string. Chuck

If you are going to switch from a plain to a wound string, you need to increase the gauge a little. The core of a wound string is a much smaller gauge than the plain string. If you leave the overall gauge the same, the wound string will have too little tension, resulting in less volume and excess travel on raises and lowers. For a 0.022 gauge plain, you need at least a 0.024 gauge wound, maybe higher if you want to lower it.