Guitar setup: how to restring a Bigsby vibrato

1. Mark the position

If your guitar has a floating bridge, and is not pinned in place, mark its position with some tape before you remove the strings.

If the bridge goes back in the wrong position, the guitar’s intonation will be out.

2. Take a closer look

Take a close look at how the Bigsby works.

You secure the new strings via the little pins on the Bigsby’s roller, the part that rotates when you wiggle the vibrato arm. The hole in the string’s ball end slips over the pin.

3. Kink the string

Put a little kink in the string near the ball-end of the string to help keep it in place.

You should also maintain tension on the string at all times to stop the ball end slipping off the pin. It gets easier with practice.

4. Cut it to size

Keeping the tension on the string, take the loose end up to the headstock.

Cut it a couple of inches beyond the tuning head you intend to wind the string round. Feed the end of the string through the hole in the tuner’s shaft…

5. Keep the tension

It still makes sense to maintain tension in the string as even at this stage it can pop off and you’ll have to start again.

Using a string winder, wrap the string round the shaft. You want three to five neat string windings.

6. Ensure there's a uniform distance

Before you bring the guitar up to pitch, make sure there’s a uniform distance between the strings at the vibrato as shown above to avoid tuning problems.

Now, stretch the strings, tune and repeat, until the tuning settles. You’re done!