Changing strings on locking tuners?

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    • March 25, 2008 at 1:06 pm
    Goliath
    Member

    I have sperzel locking tuners on one of my guitars, while I was looking at them last night considering changing them, I realized I didn’t know if there was any special thing I had to do to change them. I’ve had the guitar since december and it has GHS DM Progressives on it which are fantastic strings with a fantastic string life, but it’s getting to the point where I should probably change them as the sounds started to suffer a bit.

    So, anyone know of any hoops you have to jump through with locking tuners when changing strings?

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Replies
    • March 25, 2008 at 1:28 pm
    RoEm
    Member

    @Goliath 2110 wrote:

    I have sperzel locking tuners on one of my guitars, while I was looking at them last night considering changing them, I realized I didn’t know if there was any special thing I had to do to change them. I’ve had the guitar since december and it has GHS DM Progressives on it which are fantastic strings with a fantastic string life, but it’s getting to the point where I should probably change them as the sounds started to suffer a bit.

    So, anyone know of any hoops you have to jump through with locking tuners when changing strings?

    first thing you should do is putting something beneath the bridge.. something like a 9 volt battery or something
    to keep the bridge from falling while you’re removing you strings from the guitar..
    after that, release all the locks at the neck.. (3 lockers or something… bad English, sorry)
    then start to release the strings with the keys and eventually after they loose tension just remove them as you
    would do usually… open the bridge locks of the stings with the tool you got with the guitar..
    (Ellen key or something )
    and remove them… that’s it for first step…

    to put the new strings on your guitar (BTW, I prefer ErnieBall super slinky) unlock the top nut and set the fine tuners all the way out or close to at, so you could tighten them after you lock the guitar and they will loose tension…
    now just put the strings in the correct way and lock them on the bridge.
    now pull the the battery out so the bridge will come back to it’s normal hight and set the strings from High E to the Low E…
    you probably know that already, but once you make one tighter the others go flat so you will need to re-tune
    your guitar several times…
    when you done lock the top nut and then make sure your guitar is tuned and make final adjustment
    with the fine tuners…

    I hope it’s good enough so you could understand anything..
    if someone finds a mistake or something.. correct me..

    • March 25, 2008 at 1:35 pm
    Goliath
    Member

    Whoops, sorry I should have been more clear, it’s a fixed bridge, not a Floyd Rose/Floating tremolo, w/ string thru body. It’s the actual tuners themselves I’m curious about, it looks like they might pop out further because as it is they have like 1 string width on either side of the hole the string goes through.

    • March 25, 2008 at 1:50 pm
    RoEm
    Member

    oh oops… lol my mistake..
    anyway.. as far as I know.. you just get the strings through the hole.. make one wrap on the pole and lock them..
    as far as I know you loosen by turning the little ‘discs’ at the bottom of the tuners in a clockwise direction, put the string through the hole and then tighten them up by turning the ‘discs’ in a counter clockwise direction.

    still, correct me ppl, cause never have I used them before..

    • March 25, 2008 at 6:51 pm
    Goliath
    Member

    That might be right because there are certainly discs on the backs of the tuner housing.

    • March 25, 2008 at 7:00 pm
    Mike Edwin
    Mike Edwin
    Member

    I have no experience with these locking tuners.

    This site may help.
    http://www.specialtyguitars.com/sperzel.html

    • March 25, 2008 at 7:18 pm
    Trev
    Member

    Hey Goliath – there’s a video from Mike at Suhr guitars specifically on changing strings with Sperzels here:

    http://gallery.mac.com/suhrguitars#gallery

    Down near the bottom right of the page. When you are done you can check out some great axes too!

    HTH,

    Trev

    • March 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm
    Goliath
    Member

    great links, thanks guys.

    • March 25, 2008 at 11:11 pm
    OutLaw2112
    Member

    Check this one out…

    http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/video/restring/index.html

    • March 26, 2008 at 12:39 am
    Goliath
    Member

    Ok, if you don’t have sperzel locking tuners on your fixed bridge, you should get them. I just restrung my guitar. Seriously, 5 minutes. I don’t mean “yeah this is an easy task that doesn’t really take all that much time so 5 minutes is a bit of a hyperbole to illustrate how simple it is” I mean literally, 5 minutes. It would have been less than that if I had a string winder. I thought I loved this guitar, but now having changed strings on it, I REALLY love it. so very simple, changing strings is no longer an exercise I avoid doing as long as possible (well, it still will be for the FRs, sorry guys)

    • April 11, 2008 at 6:57 pm
    Gollum
    Member

    Yea, I’ve put sperzels on two of my guitars. I think all guitars should have them. They don’t seem to have the same quality feel in them as grover tuners when you stringing a string up, but the ease of changing strings far offsets them compared to any tuner.

    Glad you got them changed without drama.

    • April 13, 2008 at 1:53 pm
    Goliath
    Member

    You would prefer Grover MiniRotos? I had a guitar with those in them and they didn’t hold tune for me as well as the Sperzels have. Of course, the sperzels pale in comparisson to a FR, but I can change tunings MUCH easier on them lol.

    • April 14, 2008 at 2:21 pm
    Gollum
    Member

    I don’t like the grover minirotors, but the origonals are great. They feel very fluid and smooth while tuning, unlike most other tuners out there. They provide a heavy and accurate feel to tuning that makes you completely forget you even have tuners because they never stand out.

    My sperzels have been inconsistant on their resistance, which is annoying. With no string tention on them some turn tight, some loose. But they DO hold tune well so it’s not enough to ever make me worry or complain.

    Most tuning stability issues I’ve ever encountered on a guitar is not at the tuners though, it’s at the nut and the bridge contact points. If these points are catching the string, or you don’t have enough down pressure, or a combination of the two you can have wandering tuning. I actually just fixed this issue on a friend’s Gibson CUSTOM…. The nut was machined too tight and I had to take some small files to it and open up the 1-3 strings as they were getting pinched. Then what happens is that anytime he starts strumming the string can’t decide where to put the higher tention, on the nut to bridge side, or the nut to tuning side.

    Night and day difference after 5 minutes worth of work. Now he doesn’t have to worry about playing open chords for fear of it sounding out of tune.

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