You broke your new guitar??

 

Click bait.  No, I did not break my new guitar.  I did break a string on my new guitar.  I figured I'd do a string change before long, but this was sooner than I expected.  And for full disclosure, I just replaced the high E-string.

I figured there would be a learning curve with this unusual tuning peg location and stringing on this Traveler Guitar.  I was right.  For the guitar players out there, restringing this guitar is a lot like stringing a slot head guitar... and I am not a fan of stringing slot head guitars.

The guy I bought this from thought that the action might be a bit low.  I tried it out before plunking down the money, and I didn't hear any string buzzing on the frets (a definite sign that the action is too low.  I'm used to playing mostly acoustic guitars - they generally have a bit higher action (than electric guitars) to get the strings to vibrate the top.  I thought this Traveler Speedster played nice, but I could see that if you really dug into it, there could be an issue.

I didn't take a tuner with me yesterday when I bought it.  The guitar was a bit out of tune, so I tuned it "relatively" (pick a string and tune the others to that, by ear)... which is fine as long as you aren't playing with other guitarists.

I have worn out a couple electronic tuners, so Joan ordered me another yesterday; it arrived today.  I pulled it out, turned it on, and compared it to one of my trusted tuners... right on.  I tried it on one of my Emeralds, so not a fair workout for the new tuner - those Emeralds rarely need to be retuned.

I put the new tuner on the Traveler - it was a step and a half flat.  I started bringing it up to pitch, and... twang!  The string broke, and hit my hand like a whiplash.

So, I guess I am going to see what it takes to put on a new E-String.  I haven't broken a string in years.  It used to happen in my old rock 'n roll days, but I was playing about 4 hours a night, almost every night.  I went through a lot of strings.

The high E-string I have onhand is .010... I had to put on a set of readers and use some additional light to thread the string around to the back of the guitar and into that hole in the tuning peg.  That's always the toughest string for me...

 All good.  Bringing the rest of the strings up to proper pitch was a non-event.  I'll change the rest of the strings when I get time.  Changing strings on my other guitars generally takes me about 20 minutes (well, except the Taylor 12-string); no idea how long it will take on this new one.