Electric Guitar Restringing

For a player that is not familiar with restringing of a guitar, it may be a little overwhelming. If you arm yourself with the appropriate tools and acquire some know how you will be able to restring like a pro. On the road playing on a regular basis, restringing weekly is a must. Due to the acid and oils that are found in one’s body, the strings shine can be lessened and feel as if they are not clean. As far as it goes for me, my love for playing guitar would be renewed with a brand new restringing. I would religiously restring my guitar at the beginning of each week as I watched television and the acoustic was lessened.

If you are tired of paying through the nose to have your guitar restrung, then learning how to restring will be a great advantage and save you tons of money. Here is a list of things you will need to start restringing:

. New package of strings
. String winder
. Wire cutters
. Tuner for a guitar

Restringing a guitar should take up about an hour’s worth of time if you are just starting to learn how to string a guitar. But, the more time you spend restringing, this time will be usually cut in half or less as you get more proficient.

You should never take all six strings off all together. If you do this the guitar may become damaged. This will certainly happen if left unstrung for a period of time. This is due to the neck of the guitar. The neck is geared to always have tension due to the strings. Lessening of more than a string as a time could result in significant under performance.

The strings for many guitars are what holds the piece together. I had read a story some time ago that a man that had been employed to restring a bands guitar’s, the Ramones. He made a very grave mistake. He wanted so much to impress Johnny Ramone with his expertise, that when he started restringing his guitar, he removed all the strings at once. This had caused the guitar to fall into pieces. This happened at a time before they were to hit the stage. The guitar was built in a way that the strings held the guitar intact. Not that this was the worst that happened, the guitar’s bridge piece fell into a duct made for the air conditioning. What a bummer!

He and some others, worked frantically to recover the piece from the air conditioning duct with some gum and a hanger for clothing. They did manage to find the piece, put the guitar back togther and restring it to boot, he just put it back together this time, using one string at a time.

I find it works best by restringing one string at a time, but many others work together restringing two strings at a time. As you learn, you will figure out what will work for you individually. You can use this when you are contemplating restringing your guitar.

Most electric guitars will have what is called a whammy bar or locking nut tremolo, and you will need to unlock it. It will work better if you remove the clamps all together and work the nut until the end of the job and all strings have stretched and tuned. It is a good idea to then place the clamps and commence to tune the strings by using the tuners that will be found on the tremelo bridge itself.

· Unwind the string just enough, and manually unwind the string from the post. Create just enough slack so that you can start the process of unwinding.

· Cut the extra piece of the string at the end with the wire cutters. This piece can be thrown away. Do this so there is no chance of the string scratching the guitars surface. When you push the string back and forth through the bridge area, do it slowly so as to make sure it won’t be dragging against the guitar’s body. You don’t want your guitar to end up needing to be refinished also.

You need to take the right string, and put it into the guitar’s bridge. Then take the string and bring it over. Next, take a new string and insert it through the bridge of the guitar. Bring it up and over the guitar’s saddle, then up the neck area. Now bring the string to the nut and slide it through the hole in the turning post. Condition yourself to consciously keep in mind to watch the end of the string and keep it from grazing the body of the guitar and damaging the finish on it.

· Now, turn the tuner manually and make sure that the string starts wrapping up around the guitar’s turning post. You should really make sure you wrap it three to four times over and around the tuner.

· Slowly turn,to tighten up the string and take out the slack. Make sure the string has been appropriately set into the nut and up the saddle of the guitar.

· You can now use the wire cutters to cut the extra string off close to the guitar’s tuner. Now, use the winder to wind the string to the sound of the correct pitch.

· Take the digital tuner and commence to tune the strings to pitch.

· Use your hand that you pick the guitar with and lift the string up gently from the fretboard about middle ways from the bridge, as if you are picking a string. Grab the string with your picking hand halfway between the bridge and nut then lightly tug the string away from the guitar. Don’t pick the string up too high and too roughly, just in a way significant enough to take the slack out of the string and will let you tighten it up at the post tuner.

· Now, you will tune the string to the right pitch and you will stretch the string enough times until you hear it stay within constant tune.

The remaining five strings should be done with a similar repition as above. You can find out that the new strings may change in pitch while you are working on restringing the other. A Floyd Rose guitar, or a guitar in that style, will have the pitch of their strings change and fluctuate, while being restrung. When finished with all strings, you will need to make sure they are all in tune again. Use the fine tuners for the strings pitch to be accurate.

The final step is the best, now you get to sit back and enjoy. Play something that has a lot of notes and make sure to really work the strings to break them in a bit.

Well, now you can rest easy and pat yourself on the back for a restringing of an electric guitar job well done.