Nickel-Wound Strings

A nickel-wound string is a plain steel core with a round nickel-plated-steel wire wound around it for the lower four (or five, on a wound-third set) strings; the top strings ship plain (uncovered) steel. The winding adds mass without adding stiffness the way a thicker solid wire would, which is what lets a wound string reach a low pitch at a playable tension instead of needing an impractically thick solid core.

What it suits

Electric guitar, almost universally — magnetic pickups sense the string’s ferrous content, and nickel-plated steel gives a strong, balanced signal across the neck, middle and bridge positions. It is the string every "regular light" or "10s" set on an electric guitar ships with unless the box says otherwise.

How it ages

Nickel resists corrosion better than bare steel but still picks up finger oil and skin acid over playing hours; tone dulls (high end rolls off first) well before a string breaks. A wiped-down string after each session measurably outlasts one left in a case.

The same gauge, computed

At a 0.024" gauge, D3 on a 25.5" scale — every input held equal except the winding material — this site's tension table computes:

• Nickel-Wound: 15.76 lbs (7.15 kg) — this material
• Phosphor Bronze: 16.95 lbs (7.69 kg)

Computed from string-tension-data.js's unit-weight table — the same module the set solver and the hub's own tension calculator both read. No second formula.