Moving strings between 2 instruments

Also, in transferring a string from one fiddle to another, the bending & gripping at the nut and the bridge may not kink the string at the same places.

That's quite the transition from gut to Evah Pirazzi. I'd love to hear more of your impressions of the difference!

I think it is important to be sure that the VSLs of both violins are identical so the strings fit both instruments the same to avoid damage that might otherwise occur.

"Fatigue" defined as weakness caused by repeated variations in stress, in this case, repeatedly slackening the strings and then stretching them back to pitch.

I went through that process as stupidly as I could, starting by ordering loop-end instead of ball end. I did that out of forgetting about the fine tuners, being so used to the plain-hole tailpieces on my other 2 violins. I always tie my own knots with the gut strings so I thought of loop-end as a new convenience. I was 3/4 lucky in the sense that only the E string had a loop while the other 3 were still ball-end. There are 4 fine tuners on this violin, and they want ball-ends. When I got to the E string, I improvised by slipping the loop around one of the two upward protrusions of the fine tuner (the slot between them is where I was supposed to slip the string so the ball would catch inside). I guess it works, but I hope I'm not distorting the tuner by putting all the stress on only one side, and therefore also a little off-center too.

And speaking of that stress on the tuner, it seems to me that bringing these strings up to pitch requires they are pulled to a higher tension than I'm used to! It actually feels dangerous, I hope none ever snap apart in my face! In that sense, these strings are a little frightening ! And as I was re-tightening them in the first hour (still stretching...) I was startled when the bridge tipped over towards the fingerboard and was slammed into the top of the instrument! I am amazed the force didn't crack the wood (or drop the soundpost)! So after loosening the pegs and standing the bridge back up, I paid a lot more attention to the bridge perpendicularity and avoided any gaps under the feet of it. I was surprised at how slick the violin top felt, how much the bridge wanted to skate as I tightened the strings again.

I've only had a little playing time on the new strings, and they weren't yet stable, requiring frequent tightening to return to pitch. They are indeed loud, something which I read about in reviews. I do not like the metal E string, I got some silent and some squeeky bows across it, reminding me of something I hated about metal E strings before I switched to gut about 7 years ago when I was still in my first year. Probably the Tonica E was metal too? I never noticed in the few weeks I had them, but whatever it was I never squeeked or ghosted it like the Evah E string.

Already I learned a lot from this experience, and as I get used to these new strings I'm sure I'll form an opinion about their sound and playability. So far my lessons taken are mostly mechanical: buy ball-end strings for this violin, watch the bridge when tightening, be careful how I bow a metal E string. I think my gut strings have been much lower tension, and probably the Tonicas were too, since I hadn't even thought about that until I was bringing these strings up to pitch. I once tried light gauge gut strings on one of my other violins, but didn't like the sound. And my first time with guts, I ordered bare (no metal windings) heavy gauge, but the G string was so fat (a Gamut "pistoy" of, I think, 3 strands braided like a rope) and sounded like a sick goat (perhaps my low skills contributed to the problem). So I have otherwise always ordered medium gauge strings, and that's what these Evah's are too. Maybe they'd feel less threatening (ie, require less tension) if they were light gauge, but I won't be able to to do another $100+ string experiment very soon.

So over the next few weeks I will be getting to know these strange and exotic new strings, maybe a bit like trying new race car tires on my old compact car.