I have a guitar cake coming up for the end of the week. And the last time I did a bass cake I piped on the strings. Does anyone have a way they prefer to do them or any advice in making them? Any advice would be helpful TIA

You could consider uncooked spaghetti.

I used white piping gel on this cake.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1789393.html

It was the first time I made strings of any sort. I did watch a video about piping strings onto a cake and the lady said and showed that the higher you lift your string (while piping) the more control you have over it. Makes it easier to pipe a straight line. I tried at least!!! lol.

Hope that helps!

I used an extruded on my last two guitar cakes for the strings. It was easy. I'm still looking for a better way but so far this is the best way I've found.

If you could find black string licorice it might work well. No stores in my area carry it any more so I piped on my strings and it was a disaster

I used my clay extruder with fondant/tylose. The size disk I needed made about 10 or 12 strands, and they kept getting tangled up and stuck together. So I put a folded piece of foil inside the extruder over the disk so that only two of the holes were open. I squeezed out the two strands onto waxed paper and was able to keep them nice and straight. When I had the six strands I needed, I painted them with silver luster dust and vodka. When they were dry I put them on my cake. Worked pretty well.
Here's the finished product:

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1725322

I, too, used a clay extruder for my guitar strings.
Worked like a charm! Here's the guitar ...

http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1537507

I would definitely use a clay extruder - works great!

I believe in this episode of Ace of Cakes they used real guitar strings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyWKxP70Qbw&feature=related

thanks so much everyone! i've been wanting to go buy one of those bad boys and never had the excuse, this might just be that time