Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

[GuitarGuy503]

It may sound crazy but I have a tech do all the work on my guitars and other gear. I just don't trust myself. I always feel better taking all my guitar work to a tech that way there are no possible accidents on my part and the job gets done right. I'm not comfortable working on my own guitars and never have been. I have invested to much money in my gear to wing it, work on my gear, and risk ruining something. It makes me feel better to give the work to someone who knows exactly what they are doing because it takes all the stress off of me and I don't have to wonder if I did it right. Call me a pansy but I don't even change my own strings... lol :9: How bout you? Do you change your own strings or have a tech do it? What about pickup swaps, setups, etc?

 

[danglybanger]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I hate working on guitars. I'm afraid I'll screw em up.

...but I do it anyway.

the fretboard came partway off my cort bass. :smack: clamped and reglued it.

tip top.

 

[GuitarGuy503]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I hate working on guitars. I'm afraid I'll screw em up.

...but I do it anyway.

the fretboard came partway off my cort bass. :smack: clamped and reglued it.

tip top.

I really think I'd enjoy working on my own guitars but I'm not willing to practice on my spendy gear. I'd buy a few cheap guitars to practice on so I could gain confidence in working on my spendy guitars.

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I do absolutely everything - except nut installation. I've been teaching myself how to do everything, but it's cool!

Rewired my Green buddy, installed the bridge/bigsby, refinished the truss rod cover, refinished the pup rings, fixed the pickups, etc. On my Gibson, I've swapped the pups a few times but I haven't done much 'work' to it yet.

Working on guitars is quite possibly my favorite thing to do.

 

[D-EJ915]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I don't have files so I haven't done my nuts or frets but I've done everything else on my guitars.

 

[danglybanger]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

...heh, nut installation was the first thing I did on my schecter... well in terms of non wiring work.

I've helped build a few guitars from scratch, I've been meaning to try one myself... next thing I'm assembling my Jazzmaster.

 

[Guest]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I do it myself, they surely aren't as good as the setups professional techs do but I learn with time

 

[I_M_Ken]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

i try to do everything can myself, and if its something i have absolutly no skill/confidence in, i'll bring it to a tech. eg repainting, scalloping, changing frets.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

It may sound crazy but I have a tech do all the work on my guitars and other gear. I just don't trust myself. I always feel better taking all my guitar work to a tech that way there are no possible accidents on my part and the job gets done right. I'm not comfortable working on my own guitars and never have been. I have invested to much money in my gear to wing it, work on my gear, and risk ruining something. It makes me feel better to give the work to someone who knows exactly what they are doing because it takes all the stress off of me and I don't have to wonder if I did it right. Call me a pansy but I don't even change my own strings... lol :9: How bout you? Do you change your own strings or have a tech do it? What about pickup swaps, setups, etc?

I do setup, string changes, etc, all myself. However, since I have sucky soldering equipment, I have a friend at the local music store do it. He's good and he charges me very little.

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I don't do nuts because (sounds very gay so far, perhaps the second half of the sentence will fix that) I don't know how to file them correctly. Depth, width, etc.

 

[Innocent_Bystander]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I think I've done just about everything except a nut swap and I'm not very good at setups. I can get things close but I don't really know how to properly do a setup.

 

[Pierre]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I do everything short of wood and fretwork myself. Cheaper, often better (I do it MY way as opposed to have to explain to someone what my setups are like) and much more satisfying. Setting up is easy if you learn the right way and I learnt how to do it about 3 months after I started playing. Definitely worth it. I do nut work and electronics too of course.

If only I didn't have so little money and space I'd already do fret works

 

[StratTom]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I change my own strings. As far as setups go, I adjust the truss rod alittle but don't like to really mess with anything else. Well, except on my bass because I bought it so cheap so I mess with that alittle more. Pickup swaps I have a tech do. The guy I go to charges $5-10 more than the normal price for duncans but he installs the pickups for free and he does a setup too. I should invest in a good soldering iron and do it myself.

 

[JacksonMIA]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I do pretty much everything myself. I wouldn't re-set a neck or do a refret, but pretty much anything else is fair game. I've even done some refinishing, but I need some more practice before I'd be comfortable on an expensive axe (not that I'd really want to refinish one of those, anyway).

 

[tubeman87]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I pretty much do everything on my guitars except re fretting, although I'd probaby try it.

 

[Bludave]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I do all my own work that does not require soldering. Most Techs set guitars up the way they feel they play the best. I usually have to raise the action at a minimum because I like my strings up higher than most. When it comes to soldering I am a Spaz, so I have a friend who is a luthier (Cris Mirabella) who does all my pickup swaps and such. I actually will do all the replacing of pickups and such, I just can't seem to get the hang of soldering. Cris is an artist with a soldering Iron! I also won't do nuts or frets. Basic setup stuff, but thats mostly what my guitars require.

 

[aleclee]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I'll do most stuff other than major repairs and fretwork. I've been doing setups since I was 16 and electronics tweaks for about the past 15 years. That's not to say that I haven't had the occasional screwdriver mishap but it's part of the learning experience.

 

[DankStar]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

I love the DIY thing, but I don't usually do much beyond typical stuff (change strings, the occasional new pickup installation.

It's not like it's rocket science, but it's one of those things where if I messed it up, I would be so mad at myself. Also, it's time consuming, which could also be related to not much of a cost savings.

Also, it's kind of like the don't-record/master-your-own-album mentality. You could go nuts thinking you can take away all of the buzz let's say, but in reality, there is no perfect action/buzz situation - always a give and take. I think it takes an outside person to show me that so I don't go crazy trying to find the best one.

I tried to set up a mexican strat before, and thought I nailed it. Then I took it to a shop a few months later, and when it was done properly, it played a lot better.

 

[Mephis]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

Unless it comes to fretwork or nut work, I pretty much don't trust anyone but myself to do it.

 

[Pierre]

Re: Do you work on your guitars or do you hire a tech to work on your guitars?

For me it was the opposite. Took it to shops, wasn't happy, did it myself, was much better :laugh2: Cheaper too. But it IS possible to get a buzz free action by the way, if you stay in the medium range (obviously if you go too low it's not gonna happen)