Restringing An Electric Guitar Part 1

Demystifying the restringing process for electric guitar. Part 1 of 2.

So today, we are going to talk about how to string an electric guitar, how to restring an electric guitar which is pretty much a beginner concept. I wouldn't ever bring a guitar into a music store to have it restrung. It's such a simple thing to do that is really a big waste of money to pay somebody else to do it, it's so simple. You just have to understand a few basic techniques. The first thing that you want to do is obviously have a new set of stings like this and on these D'Addario strings, I can plug D'Addario because they are sponsor, but they have got color coded ball-ends as you can see. So the first string is the one I am going to demonstrate right now, which is the first string open E. And for that one, the color code ball end is silver. So I am going to take this one, get out of here. This is the first string which is size 10 gauge in this case, and the most important thing that I want to do is really unravel this string without kinking the string. So I am going to do that very carefully. Unravel the string and if you kink it, you are going to weaken it and that can really cause to break early later on. So you are just going to be careful about that. So what I am going to do is actually undo the string that's on the guitar right now. Okay, so now that I am down with the headstock, I have got the first string tuner right here. In this case, you have got a locking tuner which are getting more popular these days. You might have a standard tuner where the winds go around the post, and that's something we will talk about as well. What I am going to do is just undo the lock on top of the tuner here, you might need a screw driver for that if it's tight and then just take the old string off. This is probably the most obvious easiest part. So I am just taking this first string off and in this case, on the Fender Style Bridge, you've got to grab the back of the guitar. You've got to find the ball end of the old string on the back of the guitar, we will talk about that. And now, I am going to take this first string which is again remember has the silver ball end and the other end is a plain end. So it has nothing on the other hand. What I am going to do is feed it through the hole in the back that corresponds with the first string. So here it comes, you've got to watch out. When you take these things up here, you are going to make sure they come through the right place, sometimes it will sneak in through the other sides of the bridge saddle or whatever, you have to make sure it comes through the right way, and just make sure you get it all the way through, bring it over the bridge saddle so that it fits right into the groove on the bridge saddle there, bring it over. What you're going to want to do is put a little bit of slacking on a locking tuner like this. What I would want to do is feed it through this post. You can see there is a hole in the post in the locking tuner. Bring it through it on a locking tuner, the idea is to stretch it tight and then lock it and there really would be no wraps around the post, and I would just tune it up with the tuner. But, I am going to demonstrate this as if this wasn't locking guitar tuner. So I am going to leave several inches of slack here, maybe four inches of slack in the string. And then, I am just going to kink the string on the end here. So that as I turn the tuner, the idea is it's going to wrap around the post. And I want to progressively wrap it around the post down and I also want the wrap to go this way around the post as opposed to this way. So that all the tuners work the right way. The other trick is you could actually bring this back, this tag in back, bring it under the string and then pull it over. So that sort of locks it down like that, and bring it into the string out there. I am just going to hold it down sort of at the first fret to keep it even -- and then of course all I am doing at that point is just tightening the string. So that's really a Fender Style Guitar, restringing your Fender Style Guitar, strat style. Most electric guitars are of that style, and in next couple of episodes we are going to do a Gibson Style Electric as well. But, like I said, paying somebody to do this is a little bit silly and it usually costs way too much at a music store. So that's the first string. Now, the other thing you want to do once you get the string on is stretch it out a little bit. One thing you could pay a pro to do is set up your guitar, take it to the music store and get it set up, so it plays well and all the strings are the right actually in size and action on the freeboard. But restringing a guitar is definitely something that everybody who plays guitar needs to know how to do, and that's really the first string there. So the whole concept works the same for all the other strings. Just as simple as that for a Fender Style Guitar. So practice that a few times, it will be second nature. Let's look at the Gibson Style Guitar next. The movement for verse is E, kind of trademark drop which is just going to the major third of the B. Now, we go into the pre-chorus and it just mirrors that phrase or that voice right there. It starts on the open E string and just goes.