How to Restring A Guitar: A Step by Step Guide
Breaking strings already? Or just want to save a few bucks and change the strings yourself? Whatever the case might be, get ready to restring your acoustic guitar. Restringing a guitar can be very tricky but if you learn it once, you can easily change strings whenever required. So let us see what you would need to change strings of your acoustic guitar.
Materials Required
- Your guitar (like, you can’t do it without this man!)
- Pliers
- New strings (of course)
- Cleaner
- Clean cloth
- Tuner/ reference for tuning
Taking Off The Old Strings
- First of all, lay your guitar flat where it will be stable. A table should be preferred.
- Then, turn the tuning peg in order to loosen your string. It is better if you start with the thickest- the sixth E string. You can easily figure out to how to loosen the string. Just turn the peg and strike the string. If it is giving a higher note, you are doing it wrong and do it in the opposite direction.
- After you have loosened the string enough, cut it with a pair of pliers, nice and clean.
- Remove the upper end of the string by turning the tuning peg in the same direction and pull the upper part of the cut string out. Now remove the lower part of the string as well. For this, you would need to pull the bridge pin and out. If your guitar does not have a bridge pin, you can easily take the string out of its wedge socket.
- This way, you need to follow the same procedure and take out all the strings in the decreasing order of their thickness.
Preparing The New String
- Now open the packet of strings that you have bought and carefully take out the thinnest gauge string or the first string (if it is labelled).
- Pull the bridge pin put and insert the non free end of the string inside the hole and the put back the bridge pin over it. Press hard to make sure that the string would not come out.
- Now stretch the string all the way up to the neck and the tuning board and carefully use the free end of the string to wind the string over the tuning peg, making two loops.
- Then, insert the free end of the string through the hole of the peg and through the loops made by you. Now carefully start tightening the string.
- While tightening the string, make sure that one of your hands is stretching the string so that it holds and tightens at a faster pace.
- Repeat the same procedure for the rest of the strings as well.
After you have done so for all the strings, you can start tuning the guitar with or without a tuner. Make sure to clean the fret board of the guitar with a clean cloth and cleaning solution before you play. There you go- you just restrung your acoustic guitar.
Note- Do not get confused between tightening and loosening the peg. Ask if you do not know. Also, never start tuning unless you have restrung all strings.
