I'm talking about putting new strings on Vintage (EC signature strat) tuners. (The machine heads are listed as "Fender/Gotoh® Vintage Style Tuning Machines" in the specs). I have restrung more guitars than I can possibly count since I started playing in 1967, but my string poles have *always* had a hole in the middle - so I could just thread the string through it, twist it around and under, and that gave it the "grab" it needed to tighten itself as I turned the tuning knobs. It's always been a piece of cake - strings changed in maybe 15 minutes with another 10 to 15 minutes stretching and retuning until things pretty much settled down.
Last night I spent TWO HOURS and got TWO STRINGS on....
My EC strat has vintage string poles - they are just bare metal (with no holes in them) and slot at the very top (and a hole where the end of the string is supposed to stick into). The way it came from the factory it MUST have been strung by machine, because the strings went around the poles as many time as could fit from bottom to top - neatly with one turn right over the next one - and the top end of the string neatly put into that slot/hole in the top. I tried to emulate this, and I think this as a BIG mistake!!!
I COULD NOT get the strings to "grab" onto the string pole so I could start winding them! I did a turn around the pole and then put the string under the first turn so that it could act as a holding point to get started, but it just kept slipping and I turned, turned, turned with nothing happening. I have a string winder (thank God, or I wouldn't have been able to even try - I've never needed to use it before however). I tried putting the end of the string after one loop through the slot on top just so it would hold the string in place and once it "grabbed" onto the pole I could release it from the slot, but that ended up with a circle of string popping off the pole after a few winding around. It just would not catch and I spent from 8:30PM to 10:30 PM and by hook and crook, I managed to get TWO strings on (the high E and B) - and only about two turn around the pole each. That's IT! I even had my wife hold the end of the string with pliers after one wrap around and pull on it to make the string tight against the pole while I wound - NADA.
WHAT is the secret to stringing these poles with no holes in them? Should I not have stared with the small strings first (which are not wound and so would have the least friction between them and the pole)? This morning I got the 3rd (G) string on in about 10 minutes - I don't know if it's because it's bigger or just because I learned some things last night. I expect the last 3 strings to be easier because they are wound and will have more innate friction against the pole (I hope!!!). But am I alone in finding this really hard to do??? I can't take a hour to change a high E string if it breaks during a gig (oh, and I DID break the first high E string I put on by mistakingly turning it's tuner when I was putting the B string on...so that one I had to start over from scratch - I was just so burned out by that point, cause I never usually do that...I'm really careful).
Basically, HOW do I get the string to grab so I can get the winding started and then the string will start holding onto the pole and then it's just like others guitars at that point. I feel like a total spaz - SO many people have strats and it can't be that hard!!! - but I've changed so many strings on so many guitars and this never happened before. I feel so frustrated - and I didn't get to play at all last night - that hurts!
(and I must have gotten really tense too because my hands actually hurt today from all the pulling and pushing of the strings I did as the minutes ticked by with no results...)
Argh.
Jim
James V. Signorile, ASCAP