How to Change Guitar Strings.

By: Michael Gardner

Table of Contents iii

Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iii

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... v

Manual Overview............................................................................................................................ v

Supplies ........................................................................................................................................... v

Overview of Supplies ...................................................................................................................... 3

The Supplies................................................................................................................................ 3

De-Stringing and Disposing of the Old Strings .............................................................................. 7

De-Stringing .................................................................................................................................... 7

Disposing of the Old Strings ........................................................................................................... 8

Cleaning the Exposed Body .......................................................................................................... 10

Re-Stringing, Stretching, and Tuning the New Strings ................................................................ 12

Re-stringing............................................................................................................................... 12

Stretching your new strings ...................................................................................................... 15

Tuning the new strings .............................................................................................................. 15

Glossary ........................................................................................................................................ 17

Index ............................................................................................................................................. 18

Introduction v

Introduction

You’re in your bedroom just starting your fifth hour of practice for the day. “One more hour to

go for today,” you think to yourself as you set the metronome to 150 BPM to practice your

inverted G# minor sweeps. Just as you hit your first note, you feel a snap and look down. Your

high E string just broke! You quickly remember that you have strings in your guitar case. “I’ve

always went to my local music store to get my strings changed. I have neither the money nor the

time to go there.”

Never fear! This manual will guide you through the process of changing strings and will briefly

describe some basic maintenance.

Manual Overview After reading this manual you’ll know how to:

De-string and dispose of the old strings

Clean the exposed body

Re-string, stretch, and tune the new strings.

I will not explain how to use a tuner to tune the guitar strings. I will also not include the cost of

any of the materials because the cost will vary depending on what brand and gauge of strings you

buy. I will also not include which type of string is appropriate for your guitar.

Supplies The following items will be required to change your guitar strings:

A table

A towel or a rug as to not scratch the table or your guitar

A pair of directional cutters

Guitar

Trash can

Paper towels

A can of air

Guitar strings

Instrument cable

Tuner

Once you have obtained these supplies, you can follow this guide and start playing in around 45

minutes.

Words that are bolded and colored red can be found in the glossary on page 17.

Overview of Supplies

Overview of Supplies 3

Overview of Supplies

Before we start with the actual changing of the strings, let’s familiarize ourselves with the parts

of the guitar and of the strings

The Supplies

De-stringing and Disposing of the Old Strings

De-stringing and Disposing of the Old Strings 7

De-Stringing and Disposing of the Old Strings This step is pretty straightforward, but be careful as to not hurt yourself

De-Stringing 1. Position your guitar on the towel with the neck pointing to your left.

2. Place your left pointer finger on the highest possible fret of the string that you are

about to cut.

3. Take your directional cutters and proceed to cut the string that you are pressing. Make

sure to keep pressure on the string you are pressing as to avoid injury.

4. Repeat this for all of the strings.

8 How to Change Guitar Strings

Disposing of the Old Strings 1. Push the ends of the strings out the end of the Tailpiece

2. Pull on the ball and proceed to throw away all of the short ends of the strings.

3. Take the long segment of the strings.

4. Lift it out of the nut.

5. Proceed to unwind the string from the post.

6. Pull the now unwound section out from the post hole.

7. Proceed to wrap the long string into a loop a couple of times

8. Take one end of the string, and push it under the loop to lock the loop in place.

9. Place this loop in the trash.

Cleaning the Exposed Body

10 How to Change Guitar Strings

.

Cleaning the Exposed Body

1. Blow out the dustier/harder to reach areas with your can of air.

2. Wet a piece of paper towel.

3. Wipe down the fret board, the headstock, and the body with the paper towel.

Re-Stringing, Stretching, and Tuning The New Strings.

12 How to Change Guitar Strings

Re-Stringing, Stretching, and Tuning the New Strings

Re-stringing This is the longest section, and requires very close attention.

1. Open your pack of guitar strings.

2. Lay them such that the strings are ordered from thinnest to thickest.

3. Open the thinnest package and remove the string.

4. Put the tip of the string into the tailpiece’s lowest hole.

5. Run the string over the corresponding saddle on the Tune-o-matic Bridge.

6. Run the string over the corresponding slot on the nut

Re-Stringing, Stretching, and Tuning The New Strings 13

7. Pull on the string so that it has some tension before you wind it.

8. While keeping the aforementioned tension, wind the string around the post (away from

the middle of the headstock) around 6 times.

9. Insert the tip of the string into the post hole.

10. Turn the tuning head counterclockwise (looking head on) while continuously plucking

the string to increase the tension even more.

11. Turn the tuning head until the string rings out with a note that’s roughly close to the

intended note.

14 How to Change Guitar Strings

12. Using your directional cutters, cut the remaining string hanging out from the post hole,

leaving only about 1 cm sticking out of the post hole.

13. Repeat steps 1-12, but reduce the number of windings for each string with each

successively larger string.

Re-Stringing, Stretching, and Tuning The New Strings 15

Stretching your new strings 1. Place your pointer finger underneath the highest string between the two pickups.

2. Stretch the string by pulling it approximately 2 cm away from the body.

3. Let the string go. It will make a pretty percussive sound, but that is normal.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 for the remaining strings.

Tuning the new strings 1. Plug your guitar into a tuner.

2. Tune to your desired tuning.

3. Play the guitar a little bit. It will go out of tune.

4. Re-tune it

5. Repeat steps 1-4 until maintains tuning stability

Glossary 17

Glossary

Strings – the nickel wound steel core pieces of metal that you’re changing.

Neck – one of the main parts of the guitar, the neck holds the fret board and the headstock

Fret – the pieces of metal on the fret board that actually make the note sound out

Tailpiece – a piece of metal anchored into the wood of the guitar to hold the ball end of the

strings

Ball – the end of the guitar string that has the metal ring attached to it.

Nut – the part of guitar near the headstock that the strings fit in for alignment purposes.

Post – part of the tuning machine, these are what the strings wrap around for adjustments to the

tension of the string.

Post Hole – after the strings have been wound around the post, the string is secured here so it

doesn’t come lose

Fret Board – the part of the neck where the frets sit. It usually has position markers on it.

Head stock – The part of the guitar where the tuners are located, usually with the guitar’s brand

name on it.

Tune-o-matic Bridge – Widely used on Gibson and Epiphone guitars, this bridge type has

saddles which allow for fine intonation of the guitar

Pickups – the magnets responsible for changing vibrating guitar strings into electrical signals.

18 How to Change Guitar Strings

Index

ball, 8

directional cutters, 14

fret, 7

fret board, 10

headstock, 10

neck, 7

nut, 8

pickups, 15

post, 8

post hole, 8, 13, 14

string, 13, 14, 15

strings, 3, 8, 12

Tailpiece, 8

Tune-o-matic Bridge, 12