When do you restring a guitar

This happens to guitar strings, too, but the process is accelerated by frequent contact with the moisture from your fingers that you leave on the strings after you play. This moisture slowly attacks the strings, causing them to corrode and killing their tone. Over time, small kinks begin to form along the length of the strings. These dents are caused by contact with the fret wire, which itself is made of metal. They affect the tone and feel of the strings, and also increase the likelihood that the strings will break suddenly.

Acoustic guitars have four wound strings and two plain strings. Electric guitars, whose strings are lighter in diameter, usually have 3 wound and 3 plain. Over time the windings can become loose, making the string very unpredictable. When this happens on a steel string it will normally fall apart. On nylon strings, the winding may sometimes begin to pull off without breaking the core. Wiping down your strings top and bottom with a thin cloth can remove the corrosion-causing substances left on them after playing.

Today there is a massive range of guitar strings available. The newest innovation is coated guitar strings. Now, pretty much every string manufacturer puts out a range of both coated and traditional strings. The coated string stops grime, sweat and oxygen from attacking the strings and so keeps the strings sounding brighter for longer. Meanwhile, the manufacturers also claim reduced fret wear and better tuning capability.

This is a great thing for acoustic strings in particular as grime, sweat and oxygen can stop acoustic strings from sounding bright in a matter of days. If you don't play much at all these days, if your guitar has been hidden away in the back of your closet for years, your strings are immune, right?

Yeah, they really need to be changed. Strings oxidize over time - a fairly short time. One last thing to consider when talking about how often to change strings is player preference. Some musicians love the sound of their old broken-in strings, while others crave the sound of brand spanking new ones. Ultimately, experience will tell you when to change strings long before a string breaks.

Some signs that a restringing is in order would be if you start to have a harder time than usual getting the guitar in tune although this isn't always indicative of old strings. Tuning issues could also point to problems with the instrument itself. More obvious signs that it's time for a string change are rusty and discolored strings or a lackluster sound.

You also might want to change strings if you have an important gig coming up and don't want to chance a break, or if you can't remember the last time you changed your strings.

The first step for replacing strings is to learn about the different types of strings available and how to choose the best ones for you. This can sometimes take experimentation, patience and a few bucks. Try various brands of strings. You'll be surprised at the difference in feel, sound and string-life. Strings are sold both individually and in sets; they are available in a variety of gauges. String gauge refers to the thickness of the guitar string, which is measured in thousandths of an inch.

The larger the gauge, the heavier the string. When describing gauges, guitarists typically omit the decimal and refer only to the number. For instance, a string gauge of. A set of 0. Push the ball end down with the bridge pin.

Make sure the tail of the string sits in the groove of the pin and that this groove is pointing straight down the neck. Repeat these last two steps for the other five pins. Pull on the tail of each string to make sure the ball end is in contact with the bottom of the pin.

Draw the string over the saddle, over the top of the nut and through the hole in the machine head. Pull the string tight and measure to the next machine head along. This will give you a good amount of winds around the post and again help with tuning stability. Pull the excess you have measured back through the post and begin to wind anti clockwise, make sure to keep some tension so the measurement you made stays the same..

The string running down the neck should always be on the inside of the post. Start tightening the string until there is a small amount of tension. A couple of winds around the post should be enough. Take your wire cutters and trim off the excess string.