Guitar Strings – How to String an Acoustic Guitar

I popped a guitar string today and needed to string my guitar. I thought I’d write a post about stringing a guitar…

What you’ll need:

• guitar string winder
• wire cutters
• guitar strings
• tuner

I like Elixir strings, but am trying these D’Addarios this time.

Guitar Strings

First you want to loosen any strings that haven’t popped.

The winder should have a notch for pulling out string pegs.

Use that to pull out the pegs of the guitar strings (try to keep the pegs in order, but it’s not vital). Also, you may want to do 2 guitar strings at a time. In this case, I’m doing all my guitar strings.

Once they’re all out, pull out the string from the hole and unwind them from the tuning hardware.

This is your chance to clean the fretboard if you want. It’s beautiful, but doesn’t look quite right.

A lot of times the guitar strings will be grouped in two’s and color coded for which string goes where. Take the low E string and put the peg end in the hole – put it about 2 inches into the hole. Then add the peg w/ the grove facing towards the neck. Press the peg down and then pull the slack of the string up. The peg may come out a little now or when tightening – just press it back in.

Cut the string about 2 inches past the tuning column.

Thread it through the tuning column from the inside of the head toward the outside.

Wind counter-clockwise with the winder and try to thread the string from top to bottom around the column.

Repeat with each string: hole, peg, cut, thread and wind. The second 3 tuning keys will feel like you’re winding them backwards.

Using your tuner, tune your guitar strings and enjoy. Congrats!

Do you have an helpful techniques, tips or stories about stringing a guitar? Have you ever wound the guitar strings the wrong way and had to live with it or put a string in the wrong order?