21Aug2024 - I decided last year to use my Justin Guitar anniversary dates as a reminder to change the strings on my guitars whether they need changing or not. When I changed the strings last year I didn’t keep any notes, although I did keep pictures of my string packages in my phone. This year I noticed I had to start over listening to the videos on changing strings and still made some mistakes, so I decided to add an excessive amount of notes in my learning log.
Here are the pictures of the strings I purchased at the local guitar shop:
The pictures are for the classical strings, the strings for the two electric (Fender Strat and Epiphone LP), the strings for the Martin acoustic and the Taylor GS-mini.
SUMMARY:
See the classical guitar notes since that is unique.
For both the electric and the acoustic guitars, all the strings are cut at the 12th fret, after loosening the strings. The string pieces are rolled up for disposal. Then the fretboard is cleaned with lemon oil and left for a few hours to let the lemon oil penetrate the wood and wiped off before continuing.
The electric guitars all have the strings threaded through the bridge from different directions depending n the design.
The acoustic guitars attach the strings to the bridge end of the guitar using bridge pins. Justin’s video tutorial had useful tips for this.
The string attachment method for the head stock tuning pins is the same for the electric and the acoustic guitars based on Justin’s video tutorials.
Here are pictures to remind me:
NOTES:
Classical guitar
The classical guitar has unique ways of attaching the strings to the bridge and the tuning pins in the head of the guitar.
Video tutorial:
How to change strings on a classical guitar with D’Addario
-the D’Addario video recommends changing one string at a time because of no truss rod in a classical guitar
- I looped the string twice at the bridge attachment with the second crossover behind the bridge.
- I tied the string on the tuning poles before winding, by inserting through the tuning peg, pulling back and lopping over the string and inserting between the crossed string before pulling back to the head stock.
Here are some pictures:
Fender Strat
- I had to remove the cover on the back to remove the strings from the bridge.
- Since I already had the small screwdriver in hand, I used this as an opportunity to unscrew the cable plug jack and tighten the attachment nut, which works loose over time.
- I discovered that using the thick 6 string is useful to poke out the stuck balls for the thin strings (Justin also suggested this)
- I rubbed lemon oil on the fretboard and waited a couple of hours before adding the strings.
- I found that it is better (for me) to wait before cutting the strings of the tuning pegs after rewinding, so that you won’t stab yourself with the cut strings while winding on the posts ( I stuck myself in the finger with a 1/2 cm of D string).That also happened because I wasn’t careful and bent the string at a right angle sideways pointing to the next tuning pin.
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra
- I found that you need to add the strings starting with the tuning peg closest to the nut. So strings 6 to 4 and then strings 1 to 3, since the tuning pegs are on opposite sides. Otherwise the strings get in the way
Taylor GS mini
- I discovered out that you can’t put too much pressure on the pin puller if the bridge pin is stuck. I broke off the 6th string bridge pin. I had to use a small hammer to tap from below to loosen and remove the broken end of the bridge pin.
- I had to order a new set of bridge pins from Amazon - I decided to get ebony bridge pins that might be a little stronger to replace the black plastic pins on the GS mini. You can see the Crosby pure ebony bridge pins that I ordered above. They had abalone dots, which I didn’t want, but the dots are not too noticable.
Martin 000-MMV (Guitar Center custom model - like a budget 000-28)
- since I had to order new bridge pins for the Taylor GS-,mini, I also ordered new seat of bone bridge pins for the Martin and used for the restringing. I suspect that it might improve some of the higher frequency harmonics that are resonant with the small amount of string between the bone bridge and the bone bridge pins, but that is just my theory. I saved all of the old bridge pins just in case I break another bridge pin.
Justin has video tutorials on changing guitar strings on electrics and acoustics in the Courses Essential Knowledge : Guitar Maintenance section.
isn’t it an adventurous journey? 
no it didn’t sound superb, no need to lie, it’s not supposed to! It sounded like going nicely along in time with the teacher’s part: there’s soo much value in this kind of practice! Anything else will come, along the way, by keeping on going!