/Things For Musicians/Restringing Clinic/

Slotted Headstocks

This was converted from the original Frets.com site.
To view the original page click here

Restringing Clinic

The "original" tuning machines were mounted on slotted headstocks. In the 19th century, the standard guitar peghead was slotted for geared tuners, or was made flat for "friction" pegs of wood, bone or ivory.

Lots of old steel string guitars, as well as many newer ones made in the old style, have slotted headstocks. These guitars are restrung in essentially the same way as modern steel string guitars. You should take a little extra care to make the job come out neatly, though.

The steel stringing article has a clear description of attaching the strings at the bridge.

I'll demonstrate using the sixth string because it's the fattest and will show up best in photos. I'll just pass the string through the hole in the tuning roller:

I'm holding the string off the fingerboard 2 to 3 inches to allow one full turn to wind up on the tuner roller, and keeping tension on the string with my right hand as I work:

Next I'll bring the free end of the string around the tuning post and down the front:

I loop the free end of the string under and around back up toward the top of the headstock:

I have to pull pretty hard on the free end of the string to tighten up the loop:

Now I can let go of the free end and wind the string up:

You only need to have about half a turn of string wound on the roller to do the job, but I prefer one full turn.

Some people like to wind up a bit more, and that's just a matter of personal taste, as long as there's room for the windings. Big wads of bunched up windings can scar the peghead and be hard to tune, let alone remove, when it's time to restring

Once the string becomes tight, and the end comes around to a convenient place, I'll snip off the free end:

And tune up:

Notice I've made the winding proceed toward the outside of the peghead. This is to allow clearance for the next string, and to have the string draw smoothly as possible across the nut.

Here's the finished product:

Notice how all the strings are positioned. The outside ones go almost straight across the nut, and the innermost ones are placed so that they just miss scratching the inner edges of the slots yet draw reasonably straight across the nut.

This Martin guitar has nice wide slots and is easy to string. You really have your work cut out for you when you restring a National, Dobro or any of the older guitars with really narrow slots!