subject: How to Restring a Guitar with Steel Strings [print this page] How to Restring a Guitar with Steel Strings
Restringing your guitar is one of the most basic, yet necessary maintenance procedures you'll perform on your instrument. Granted, you don't have to know how to do it yourself since any music shop will do it for you, for a fee of course. But, it's just one of those things that any guitar player can and should do. And if it'll save you a couple dollars in the process of learning it. All the better!
To get started let's get a list of the things you'll need: a dust rag, wire cutters, and a string winder (optional).
1. First you want to remove your old strings. Various places online will say to restring one string at a time, but whenever I change my strings I like to wipe the whole thing down and make sure I have all the dust off of the neck and body. I also like to check all my frets to ensure they are still sitting snugly.
Don't snap the strings while they're still taut. This is bad for the neck. Removing that much pressure from a precisely honed wooden apparatus will cause warping in a best case scenario. In a worst case scenario you could snap the wood. Instead, loosen each string starting with the low E string. Loosen them evenly as you go: so, you'll loosen the low E a dozen turns, then the A, then the D, and so on down the line until the strings are loose enough to pull them up over the tuning peg.
2. Once loose enough go ahead and remove the strings. I like to snip the strings at the curl that's left from being wrapped around the tuning peg so they're easier to pull back through at the bridge.
3. Give the neck and body a good wipe down with a dust cloth. The neck will accumulate sweat and other gunk from your hands. I like to ensure that I wipe the neck down well.
4. When everything is clean enough get the new strings out and start stringing the guitar from low E upward. When putting on the new strings you want a bit of extra on the end for winding and tuning allowance. An inch and a half is about right. And you don't have to be exact, somewhere in the ballpark will do. Generally, I pull mine about three fingers (holding three fingers together) past the tuning peg. Put a bend in the string at that distance and turn the peg so when you string the end of the string through you can pull the string tight to the peg so it doesn't bounce around loose.
Turn the key so the string is winding toward the edge of the headstock that the tuning peg is on. Some guitars will have 3 on each side, others will have all 6 on the same side. As your winding the string keep it pulled away from the neck so that it sits tightly at the bridge and on the tuning peg. Make sure that the excess string stays above the wind so the string stays on the peg. As the string tightens to the neck give it a firm tug. This is stretching the string. I like to pull from the bridge all the way up the neck to the nut. This will pull the slack out of the string and allow the strings to stay in tune properly and more consistently sooner after restringing.
5. Repeat step 4 for the rest of the strings on the guitar and snip off the excess ends. Remember that even getting all the slack out and stretching the strings they won't necessarily stay perfectly in tune when you're done. You'll likely have to re-tune the guitar for upwards of a week after. Just remember that the more you stretch and pull the less stretching the strings will do once they're on.
So in five easy steps you have strung your stainless steel strings onto your guitar, now you just need to learn to play it!
