I just changed the bass wires on my Musicmakers Large Gothic 36. They were made by Vermont Strings and sound absolutely beautiful, not metallic at all. So I would say “go for it” Andelin, if you feel up to changing them.

The continuous tightening causes too much tension on the harp. That sounds to me like a myth to encourage non-scientific harpists to change their strings! The tension on the string is fixed by the mass of the string, its length and its pitch. I suppose if the string has stretched, to require continuous tightening, there will be less material between the soundboard and bridgepin so the tension on the harp will have gone minutely down. If continuous tightening is because the harp has changed shape and the soundboard come up then the age of the string is not a factor. Continuous tightening will change the angle of the force slightly – more windings on the tuning pin will mean a tighter angle at the bridge pin.

The number of winds on my tuning pegs is much the same when strings are old as when they are new, so any effect from winding on will be tiny.

Or do you think he was talking about about pushing the tuning pin in to the neck too hard?

No one has mentioned this. I’m wondering if you know how to change the wires because they don’t stretch like other strings. I was taught to hold it at the top of the harp above the pin and then lower it to start the wind. That gives enough slack to make the wind.
Also, removing the old ones, I learned to loosen and then cut, rather than unwind because unwinding the whole thing grinds out the hole.
Anyway, I got to worrying about you, so I thought I’d throw my two cents in.
If you’ve never changed wires, research first.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=changing%20a%20wire%20harp%20string

Andelin,

Dusty Strings also has very good instructions for changing strings on their website. Hope it all goes smoothly for you! If I can help, please let me know.

Best to you,
Balfour

I’m with Tacye, sounds like an old wife’s tale to make you spend more money. I suppose that the “proof is in your ears” but I have a hard time understanding any physical reason that new wire strings will sound any better than 2 year old ones and I definitely do not see why keeping old ones on longer would hurt the harp.

If they have oxidized that might cause less brilliance; cleaning them with light mineral oil will improve the tone. As for hurting the harp: first, the board has become stretched already; changing the string if it has not broken will relax the board somewhat which will in theory hurt it a little when it comes back up to tension. Second, the tension is quite high on a pedal tension harp in the bass and the board is correspondingly thicker. You are not going to damage it!

Biagio

Balfour, do you have any tips? I need to change mine but i’ve never done the bass; scared but I need to do it before a regulation I know!