How to Change the strings on your Steel String Acoustic Guitar

 

Hi, my name is Ian Bush, and welcome to another video from Artist Guitars.

Today I will show you how to change the strings on a steel string acoustic guitar using the Artist JB300.

Firstly, lay the guitar down on a soft surface. It's important that you change the strings one-by-one, and then tune them back up to pitch. Let me explain why.

On a typical guitar, the strings have about 200 pounds of pressure, and the truss rod has about 200 pounds of pressure the other way. If you take all the strings off, what happens is the neck bends up, causing a back bow. You don't want this to happen. What you do wanna do is keep the right amount of pressure on the neck at all times by only changing the string individually. Be careful not to use anything like side cutters to remove the strings all at once.

So let's start with the E string. The low E string is the fattest string. To loosen the string, turn the machine head clockwise. A good way to check that you're loosening the right string, is to play it at the same time you're moving it. You can hear that the pitch is going down. It's a common problem for beginners to mix up the machine heads, so make sure to take this slowly.

Now that the string is loose, you want to remove it from the machine head.

Next we're gonna remove the bridge pin. Now, if these have been installed correctly they should come out very easily, but it's common for people to wedge these in, making it difficult to get out. To get them out, you might need to use a bridge pin remover, which is often on the end of your string winder. But, if you don't have a string winder, you can use a coin. Place the coin against the other bridge pin and just pry it up. If you do break a bridge pin in the guitar, the easiest way to fix this is take all the strings off, and push it up from the inside out. But avoid this if possible.

Now, take your fresh string and check the labeling to make sure you have the low E. A good thing to know is that the thickest string is low E, and smallest string is the high E. To install, take the ball end and make a small bend. Put the string into the bridge, and place the bridge pin gently on top. This is the bit that most people get wrong. You wanna pull back on the string and gently push the bridge pin in. What you're trying to do is get the ball end of the string to rest on the wood of the bridge plate. You don't wanna wedge it in. A good way to tell, is you should be able to move the bridge pin up and down, without the string moving too much.

Moving to the top of the guitar, we now need to wind the string onto the machine head. To do this, firstly, the string needs to be trimmed. Measure three to five centimeters past the machine head, and cut. For each string gauge, this will be slightly shorter, however, this is just an approximation. Now insert the trimmed string into the hole on the machine head post, and slowly wind the string into the machine head counter clockwise. It's important to note that the string should be on the inside of the machine head, as you can see whilst I'm winding this on. I'm also putting some tension down on the string so that it goes onto the machine head underneath the hole tightly and is lined up correctly. You should be aiming for three to five winds of string on the machine head. Now keep going until you can play a very low-pitched not. Then we will grab our Artist Guitar Tuner and tune the string to the correct pitch.

 

I'm gonna use a tuner here, but it's actually easier if you listen to the note. We have other videos you can use, but for now I'll play a low E. As you can hear, we were very low but now the notes are very similar. We'll now use the tuner to get it just spot on.

This last step is very important for tuning stability. Once the guitar has been restrung and tuned to correct pitch, we need to stretch and retune the strings. The reason for this is that as the strings have been installed, it's possible that there are small areas where the string is not sitting perfectly, resulting in a small area of uneven tension. When you play the guitar later this will result in the string going out of tune very easily. Follow this to avoid that issue.

All you need to do is pull the string up and retune. You need to do this two to three times. When you've done this correctly, after stretching the string you'll find very little change in the pitch of the note.

I'd also like to point out that as I get close to the note, I'm slowing down so that I just get in tune and I'm not going past the note. The reason you do this, it's better for tuning stability to always tune up and never down. If you do go too far, tune back down below the note and then back up to pitch.

Thanks for tuning in to another video from Artist Guitars. Check the description for links to more information on the items used in this video, and leave a comment if you have any questions.