How to Change Strings on a Bigsby

You may be wondering why I chose this topic for my blog post. I recently purchased a Reverend Flatroc guitar equipped with a Bigsby vibrato. I waffled for a while on whether or not to pull the trigger, but it kept calling me. “Buy Me! Buy Me! Buy Me!” it said. I broke down as usual, and now I was taking home a beautiful new guitar purchased from a local music store in the metro Detroit area.

Once home, I took it out of the case and noticed a problem with the arm on the Bigsby. The screw that holds the small spring in the handle had come loose, so I was now unexpectedly working on my new guitar! I got to it and pulled up some Youtube videos on how to fix this issue.

I am okay with pulling out a screwdriver now and again, so I wasn’t intimidated. I removed the strings, fixed the issue with the Bigsby, and now I was about to re-string the guitar. Hmm, I’ve never re-strung a Bigsby. Would this be easy? I fumbled around for a bit, taking my time to line everything up. Looking for help, I turned to Youtube again to see if I was doing it correctly.

Voila, I came across a video produced by an old friend from high school, Mark Zabel. He also owns a couple of Reverend guitars and created a video on how to do the re-string. What I found interesting was that he used a device that made the whole process a bit easier. He fumbled with this gadget on the first go-around but stuck with it and did a great job.

I’m not endorsing the product here, as I haven’t used it, but it seems to make changing strings on a Bigsby-equipped guitar painless. I thought I would post the video so that you can judge its usefulness yourself. Mark has a successful Youtube channel where he provides quick lessons on all sorts of guitar topics. In addition, he has a website dedicated to offering virtual online and self-paced instruction.