How to string an acoustic guitar that doesn’t use bridge pins?

To keep the feeling and sound of your instrument, you need to change the strings in your acoustic guitar from time to time.

If you want to have the best sound as a guitarist, you need to make sure that every string of your instruments works well. It is also important that as a guitarist you know how to string an acoustic guitar and how to do it properly.

Re-stringing Methods

There are a few different methods for re-stringing your guitar and these tend to vary depending on what type of guitar you have as well as the type of stings you will be using. Acoustic guitars can be steel-sting or nylon-string guitars – and the different types of strings you can have are endless.

There are also different methods for re-stringing – some prefer some and some prefer others.

You can check out the following links for the methods I recommend for restringing acoustic steel string guitars that do use bridge pins.

Re-stringing Steel String Acoustics

Guitar’s That Don’t Use Bridge Pins

Nylon-string acoustic guitars and some (but not many) steel string acoustics do not use bridge pins, instead the strings are tied off at the bridge. Their headstocks are also slotted.

However, it can be a bit trickier attaching the string to the bridge. Nylon strings have no ball at the end of the string so they need to be tied to the bridge.

Here’s how to put strings on an acoustic guitar without bridge pins

Follow these steps and you should be able to successfully restring your guitar without your strings slipping.

Get the strings

You need to purchase a set of string that suits your acoustic guitaryou’re your personal playing style. Since there are various types of materials such as classical nylon guitar strings and steel strings. You can opt to purchase rectified nylon strings, titanium strings, rectified strings, composite strings and more.

Check out the links below to learn how to choose the best strings for you and your guitar

Remove the old strings

You don’t need to remove all the strings in order to restring your guitar. If you intend to change only one string, there’s no need for you to change all the strings.

However, it’s often recommended to change all of your strings for consistent wear and tone. The exception would be if you’ve broken a string soon after re-stringing all the strings.

You need to unwind the string to the extent that the strings get loose enough, which will allow you to remove it from the tuning pegs.

Attach guitar strings to the bridge

The unique and difficult part of attaching strings to your classical guitar is tying them to the bridge. See the steps for doing this below.

Feed the upper end of the string through the hole in the bridge for the appropriate string you are putting on.
Pull the strings all the way through but leave around 3 inches at the end so you’ve got something to work with when tying them on
Now you need to tie the string on. There are a couple of different methods you can use. The one I like to use is demonstrated in the video below

Attach the string at the headstock end

After attaching the string onto the bridge, you can now string it to the tuning peg. See the video above for details on how to do this.

Tighten the string and then repeat the process for the other strings.

Tune strings to the proper notes

After stringing your acoustic guitar, you will now need to tune your strings to the proper tension.

Check out the link below to learn how to tune your acoustic guitar

How to Tune a Guitar

Thanks for reading

I hope this post has helped you to learn how to restring a guitar that doesn’t use bridge pins or have ball ends.

Related: Re-stringing Steel String Acoustics (with bridge pins)

Photo Credit

By Dirkjot (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons