Thanks Franz. I’ve restrung a fair few basses so this was a surprise. Fairly narrow tuning pegs, and I prefer not to have overlapping winds so… actually, I had cut a couple of inches off E and A but the D and G were untouched! Full length. Perhaps 5 winds? Ish?
Full length / uncut, standard tuning. And, yes, the core went. I mean… I wish I’d paused to have a closer look, but both of them had popped just at the base of the tuner (winding top to bottom, clean winds, no overlap), perhaps half a cm of clear air between the end of the wind and the string, with just the wire of the outer curled like an old skool telephone cable between them!