Hi All - I recently purchased a BC Rich Shredzilla. First guitar I bought in a very long time. I broke the high E string and when I went to replace it I noticed there is no hole in the tuning key post to thread the string through. Kind of a stupid question, but how do I “tie” the string to fasten it to the post with no hole? First, batteries in guitars and now no holes? Where will it end. 
Thanks for any help!
Can you post a picture of the issue? I looked up the spec of the shredzilla and it seems to have normal tuning heads.
To the naked eye it looks like there is a hole but you cannot thread a string through so I think it’s just an indentation. I realize this may be silly but the last guitar I bought was in 1991 and back then there were holes you could see though.
Ah! It is a hole, but you have the fancy locking tuners.
Look on the back of the headstock, each tuner should have a thumbscrews. Undo it enough to get the string in, then tighten it back up
Pic for reference
Oh wow. I knew it was something simple like this but I just didn’t know because I had never seen this before. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it!
You’re most welcome! I’ve had people bring me guitars to “repair” because of this very thing.
You’re in luck, by the way. Locking tuners are one of mankind’s greatest gifts to himself.
Imo if you string up properly, they make absolutely no difference, but that’s just my take.
I agree, but they make the process of stringing up properly much faster 
(and I’m always liable to stab myself somehow when I’m doing the one-loop-over two-loops-under method)
You are a metal player, so blood on the strings might be necessary to unlock them for maximum tone? 
The over under loop is stable when strung up, but a total pain in the arse to do, and to unstring.
I have a method that is super quick, and as stable as a locking tuner. I’ve been thinking of making some general guitar maintenance posts, as thats my area of expertise, so maybe I’ll do one on that 
I’d love to hear about this!
I wouldn’t say they make no difference. They certainly will not be as effective as the best double locking system, but they do have a place in certain circumstances where they can edge out even the best post tie method.
I’m going to have to hard disagree with that. Locking tuners only make a noticeable difference to stability to guitars that are strung up suboptimally. Post tying is definitely not the way to go, you’re absolutely right that it isn’t as good, but there are other methods of stringing up that are faster than using locking tuners, faster and easier to unstring (when a change is needed), and are just as stable as a locked string.
You’re going to have to demonstrate this now, please 
Ok, I’ll make a video, just gotta find a guitar that needs restringing.
Graphiting the nut (I use a very fine mechanical pencil) is going to help stability more than tuners will. That’s usually the source of binding especially if your stability is notably a problem when bending a lot especially on lower frets. It’s the string getting bound in the nut.
The locking method described above is what I always use on guitars, it’s easy to undo when changing (tying was fun until I put enough G,B and high e strings through my fingers trying to undo them.) Most of the time I eventually replace them with locking tuners for the ease of string changes, especially on Floyd guitars, balancing them is annoying enough so any way I can make it quicker helps. On Floyd guitars without locking tuners I do the stringing them backwards although I use d’addarios and I know some people don’t like having the multicolor ball ends showing
You can disagree with it, just as I can disagree with yours LOL. This is all anecdotal. My experience with doing countless work on instruments as well is that there are times that I have found locking tuners to be the best option in a given situation, and others where I haven’t or just as you put it, It didn’t really matter or make enough of a difference to be worth it. I can give you plenty of anecdotal stories, just as I’m sure you can do the same.
Now this whole faster than locking and cutting tuner business - you are really going to have to demonstrate that one, I would surely love to see it. I’m not sure how any other method would be on the same ease or speed scale as some of those tuners can be.
Yes and the slot cut can also be a huge issue here as well, where the graphite could only do so much. At this point though, it’s sort of out of reach in terms of a simple layman’s fix and requires more skilled work than just throwing some lube somewhere, locking tuners, or a creative stringing method,
Ok, so my phone camera is not playing ball today so it cuts out and judders a couple of times, but I’ve got a 2 part video here for you.
This works on any tuner. There are no knots/loops, no poking your finger on the sharp end trying to fiddle with bits, and it’s very fast and simple (genuinely once you have the hang of it, it is faster than even having to use the thumbscrews on a locking tuner). Also it’s extremely fast to unstring.
Obviously this is done slowly for camera, hopefully with some half decent explanation.
Just in case any of you care, I repair and build guitars as my side business. I’ve had over a thousand instruments come in to me, and I was originally shown this method by an extremely well respected luthier.
Part 1
Part 2
https://youtube.com/shorts/Tm8oY5CoCmY?si=zgQyUPUvUSZ829Tb
Let me know if you have any thoughts.
I actually have been doing the one-over rest-under, which I find much more annoying than locking tuners. BUT I didn’t know about the Z, which I’m going to have to try next time I have something to restring. Thank you!
