 (Change is Good!)
Hi again, fellow guitar enthusiasts! We’ve talked about different kinds of strings, and why and when to change them. This month we are going to roll up our sleeves and get ‘er “up on the jacks”. Before we dig in, let’s kindly sit through this informative tutorial….
We will need to put together some essentials for our guitar maintenance arsenal:
  
- Guitar neck support/rest: You can buy one on line or at a good music store; most are pretty good. Make sure to buy one that’s sturdy. You can also make one fairly easily yourself with some scrap wood you have around the house.
- Work area: Any sturdy bench, or even the kitchen table, will work fine. (I regularly use an antique secretary table in the living room, where I can sip coffee and watch TV quite comfortably, thank you.) Lay down a folded towel or carpet remnant large enough to rest the guitar’s body on.
- Shop light: Good lighting is a must. Strong overhead or a shop light work well.
- Tools:
  
String winder: There are lots of different kinds out there. They all do the same job. You can buy a powered winder, but it’s not necessary unless you change a lot of guitar strings.
Side-cutter: Can be purchased fairly inexpensively at any hardware store. Used for cutting strings and nipping off ends of the strings. Some people prefer using needle-nose pliers.
Screwdrivers: (flat and Phillips’ head) used for tightening various parts that have loosened up over time.
Small adjustable wrench: (crescent wrench) Used to tighten up the tuners on the head stock.
Guitar polish: Used to put a good shine on your baby!
  
A soft rag: (An old tee shirt works best.) Used with guitar polish to give ‘er that showroom sparkle.
Before we do anything, let me assure everybody that you won’t cause any irreparable damage to your guitar by just changing strings. This is something that every guitar player can and should do. NOTE: If you have a guitar that has a Floyd Rose or similar tremolo system, you may want to watch someone change the strings first, or you may want to take it to a qualified guitar tech. These floating-pivot-type bridges are tricky, even for seasoned guitar maintenance mechanics. If you choose to change strings on a Floyd-Rose type, you should change one string at a time in order to avoid changing the string tension.
 Floyd Rose bridge
Place the guitar onto your bench and neck rest. Unwind the tuning machine and slacken the strings. Cut the strings anywhere between the nut and the bridge, using the side-cutter. Remove strings from both sides, taking note of how they were connected. (Take a picture if you need to.) Now is a good time to clean the fingerboard with a soft rag. Tighten the tuning machines if needed with a screwdriver and crescent wrench. Clean the rest of the guitar with the guitar polish and soft rag.
   6-in-line headstock
3x3 headstock
Now it’s time to put new strings on. This can be done in any order, just as long as each string goes back in its corresponding place. You’ll note that a guitar string has two different ends: the ring or “bullet” end of the string is connected to the bridge of the guitar and the plain end of the string fits into a hole or slot in the capstain of the tuning machine. On a three-by-three headstock guitar (such as a Gibson/Les Paul), the string winds onto the capstain counter-clockwise for the three larger strings and clockwise for the three smaller strings. For a six-in-line tuner guitar (such as a Fender/Telecaster), the string is all wound counter-clockwise. There is always controversy about whether to lock in the string when you wind it on, how many wraps and whether to leave the string dangling or cut it off. Personally, I haven’t noticed much difference between either of the ways of attaching string. My preference is to take my side-cutter and nip the string off, approximately ⅛” from the capstain. This tends to avoid getting pricked by the string end or having a jumble of strings hitting the bass player in the face during sound-check.
 guitar tuner capstain
When winding strings on, always make sure to have at least four windings on the capstain post, which will keep it from sliding. It’s not necessary to wind the whole string onto the post, since this will sometimes cause tuning problems. However, some players (“BB” King) will wrap the entire string onto the post with no problems.
When all strings are on, bring each one up to pitch. You can stretch the strings by rolling each one with your thumb and finger from the bridge to the nut, which will help with the stretching. Or you can just leave the guitar to sit for a day, because it needs to have time to stretch. It will go flat while you play it; just continue to bring it up to pitch.
You may notice that your fingertips turn black the first few times you play your brand-new strings. This is normal, and it will eventually stop. This is all a part of string maturity.
With our new strings on and our guitar brought up to pitch… oh, which reminds me, next time we will talk about pitch. We will also discuss different ways to tune our guitar and devices that help us get as close to perfect tuning as we mortal humans can get.
Not to worry, no guitars were injured during this string change.
‘Til then, take a deep breath and play hard!
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