Restring and/or Rescale? 30 YO Yamaha C3

[Ron Nossaman]

> My initial inclination was to look into rescaling it but after talking 
> with a friend who has more experience with re-scaling than I do, perhaps 
> that wouldn't be the best avenue. It was his feeling that perhaps the 
> 30YO hammers may be the culprit. restringing may solve the breaking 
> problem in the immediate future because it's new wire but with the old 
> hammers the breakage will return before long.

I'd suggest both rescaling and hammer replacement. Yamaha 
scales I've seen tend to have high break% in the wrapped 
strings, some over 70%. I wouldn't change the overall tension 
much, but I'd want to make sure the bass was at a less extreme 
break%.
Ron N