strings and rods and things, oh my!

allright so i need some info on truss rods and the guages of strings they can handle before you have to turn the rod. i have a mexi-standard stratocaster. i just have the 9's from ernie ball on them but i really want thicker strings, i feel like im a little kid with these strings.i dont want to snap her neck and kill her!!! also i never really learned how to string a straocastor, i know there is the right way , and then my way to do it. i would greatly appriciate any sites that people know of. im a visual learner, so pics do rock.

schmange has a >video lesson< posted to show to change the strings. He takes all of the old strings off at once, before installing the new strings. I pprefer to change strings one at a time, so that I can tune the new string to teh ones that are on the guitar as I go. If you have a good tuner handy, this is not so much of an issue. Some guitar bridges are held on only by the string tension, so you need to keep some strings in place, or the bridge falls off. You can make up your own mind on how you want to do this.

You can try out a different guage of strings without doing any damage. Things to watch for:

• With heavier strings, there will be more tension on the neck, so it will bow a little more. This will cause to the strings to be higher above the frets than the lighter set was. This won't damage anything, but it is a bit harder to play, so if you decide you like the heavier strings, you may want to get the truss rod adjusted by a tech.
• The slots in the nut were probably cut for the guage of strings that were on there. So the thicker strings will not fit quite right. They may bind in the slots a bit, making tuning a bit tricky. They may also sit a bit higher above the frets, because they won't go the bottom of the slots. This is something else a guitar tech can fix for you.
• The tone is likely to be richer, and more full. They will also sound louder.

So go ahead and try the next size up from what you have now. If you prefer the way they sound and feel, take your guitar in to have it set up for the heavier strings. This will restore the action and adjust the intonation so that it tunes more accurately.

bout how much does that ole geeteer tech cost? ya know?

I have no way of estimating from here. It depends on how much work needs to be done, and how much the tech charges per hour.

For the reasons I pointed out, your axe will need to be adjusted to match the different string guage. No way around that. The good news is, once its done, it shouldn't need to be done again, unless you decide to change something.

You can probably look at around 20-30 USD for the set-up plus the price of the strings that you will buy. The amount of work that would need to be done should only take an experienced tech maybe 15-20 minutes. It's not an extensive amount of work... just a few minor things. So no worries. It's nothing that can't be reversed either... If the nut slot is cut properly by the tech it should still be able to seat a lower gauge string but still accomodate the larger gauges...