Restringing an Acoustic Guitar

[Zito is God]

Literally 5 minutes ago my favorite acoustic guitar snapped a string (they are very old, and I was messing around with some fun tunnings like Open D-flat and such) and it got me thinking that I have never learned to restring. I really don't wanna go to a store and pay to have some teenager restring my guitar so I figuire I need to learn.

1. I need a guide that is as detailed as possible and hopefully with pictures (and of couse free). I am not "hands on" by any means .

2. I have no idea how to choose strings. I have an old acoustic Epiphone if that makes any difference and I heard the gauge needs to be medium at best or the guitar will be damaged.I also obviously want metal strings. How do I choose strings?

I wanna get this done as quickly as possible since I don't usually go a day without playing. Thanks in advance for the replies.

[shmolex]

I dont have any advice to give. I was just skimming through the topics, and for some reason, I first read the title as "Restringing an Air Guitar"

Good luck with that though.

[AcidRock23]

If it has the little pins holding the string in, you pull the pins out and take the string off, set the new string in, wind it around the tuner and tune it up. Sometimes some dexterity is required to get the winding string to stay on the tuner but, if you play guitar, you have strong fingers anyway, right? If the pins have been in there a while and are stuck too tightly, I usually wiggle them out gently w/ needlenose pliers. You will also likely want to trim the strings a bit before you start winding as it will make that task much easier. just get the string in the hole and push the pin in to hold it down at the bridge end and then pull it out by the tuner and cut it off a little bit past the tuner, probably 2 or 3" is plenty and you can experiment with that. It is better to have too much string but I've never read that there is any advantage to leaving the string intact w/o doing that.

I think that sometimes it can be a bit challenging to tune new strings to old strings by ear, b/c new strings have such livlier harmonics that they are off. A tuning fork will probably be the cheapest way to tune the axe. You just hit the fork and put the flat end at the head (?? I have no idea what the parts of a tuning fork are called...) against the soundboard of the guitar and it should sound loudly and you can just adjust the tuner of the A string (usually...) to the tuning forks beats.

To respond to your questions, I am not aware of any guide and strings are pretty sumilar across the board. I usually get D'addarios as there's some quality about them that I'm fond of but size wise I think that you get slightly more volume and cleaner tones out of bigger strings but smaller strings are easier on your fingers and for bending and that sort of thing. I usually use pretty big strings (.012/ .013)but anything .010 or smaller should not mess up your neck unless the guitar has a pre-existing condtion. Good luck!!

[Mugrila]

I swear by Elixer strings, I love their tone, and they seem to have a good lifespan. They might be a bit more expensive than others but they'll only be $15 bucks or so and are well worth it IMO.

Edit: here's a link.


As for how to restring, it's kind of difficult to explain, so I just recommend watching this. That should give you the basics.

[Omaha Red Sox]

I prefer D'Addario strings for my acoustic. This link might help you. It has some nice pictures to show you instead of tell you how to do it.

Found some more - link

[Bwanna]

+1 for Elixir strings.

If possible, the best option is to take your guitar with you to buy strings. They'll usually show you how to do it and many times will do it for you if you purchase some strings.