How to Use a Les Paul Style Guitar Headstock

Learning to play the electric guitar is exciting and fun, but with it comes responsibility to care for your instrument. You need to know how to change and tune your electric guitar, a process that is quite specific for a Les Paul style headstock.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Know what a Les Paul style guitar headstock is. Les Paul was a pioneer in the development of the electric guitar with a solid body. The guitar was a high quality, flashier model that came from a collaboration between Les Paul and the Gibson Guitar Corporation in the 1950s.
2. Take the old strings off the guitar by cutting and threading them out through the back, like you normally would. The differences will be when you are restringing the guitar. Check for any damage to the pegs, nut or other components of the guitar headstock and body.
3. String the new strings through the back of the guitar and up the body. Notice the differences between a standard electric guitar head and the Les Paul guitar head which resembles an acoustic head. It will most likely be a 3-by-3 set up which changes how you string the instrument.
4. Thread the posts on the top of the head counter-clockwise, in the standard way, and the three on the bottom clockwise. This will also translate into the directions you turn the tuning pegs to tighten the strings and lock the strings down on themselves. Thread the string under itself and then bring it back over the string to form the locking position before tightening it down.