Basic Guitar Maintenance

There is nothing more important than basic maintenance, and in this chapter I would like to explain the details on the general up-keep of your guitars, how to make adjustments and the how to do the minor repairs needed to keep your guitar in great playing condition. Weather Conditions. First I must get into this subject. Your guitar is now part of the family treat it like a family member and it will reward you with many years of satisfaction Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall Winter This is the worst time of the year for many instruments. Guitars are made of woods and just like a window swells in the summer, and can't be opened, or shrinks in the winter to let all the cold air in. Guitars are woods and will do the same. The problem in the winter months is the dry heat. Most heaters use some form of dry hot air to heat a room. While this makes it comfortable for people, woods need moisture. People drink water to keep themselves alive but no one gives there guitar a drink of water? Of course if your family member is thirsty than you give them a drink but what about your guitar? Some examples of a thirsty guitar are one that the neck shrinks on and the fret ends stick out. This is caused by the cells in the wood loosing moisture. When the water leaves the wood, the cells shrink causing the neck to compress. The best solution for this is to keep your guitar away from direct heat, a humidifier is one of the best ways to help by adding moisture to the air. Although this is not always an option never keep your guitar too close to direct heat, basically don't keep it on a stand next to a heater. Spring Spring is a great time of year and your guitar will also enjoy it. The weather is getting warmer so the heaters are off and the air out side is getting moist. Just like your children your guitar will want to get out and play. Summer This is the second worst time of year for you baby. Especially in certain areas where the humidity is so high that you feel it every where you go. Guitars do not like the extra moisture and this can cause the opposite effect than winter. The neck will get too much moisture and start to swell. This can cause a neck to twist. Believe it or not, just because wood swells or shrinks does not mean it was not dried properly. If we took all the moisture out of the wood it would crack and crumble to nothing, most maple necks have a moisture content between 8% and 12% when they are dried. Too much moisture will also cause the metal parts on the guitar like the bridge screws and frets to oxidize or rust. I recommend that after each playing you thoroughly wipe any moisture off the guitar. Also try to keep it in an air conditioned or cool environment as much as possible. From my experience basements can cause your guitars to become covered in mold so unless the basement is climate controlled keep the guitars out of them. If your guitar starts to rust what I suggest is to first wipe off the moisture with a dry cloth. On the frets use #0000 steel wool in a motion with the grain of the wood, (back and forth from the first fret to the last fret.) after the rust is off the frets, any exposed wood should be oiled. I use old english lemon oil on the fretboard to add moisture and protect the wood from cracking. If your bridge screws or any non plated metal parts start to rust here is a good solution. Take a nold tooth brush and some oil. (WD40 or Motor oil) and scrub the rusty parts with oil on the brush, this will remove the rust and keep a nice protective coat of oil on the non plated parts. Fall This is another great time of year for your guitar. It will enjoy the nice weather and love to be outside its case playing. Do's and Don't for guitars Don't leave your guitar in the trunk of your car! Would you leave your kids in the trunk? The sun beats on a car and the trunk can get too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. I only sometimes travel with my guitar in the trunk for short distances but only in a hard-shell case never in a gig bag. Don't put your guitar through checked baggage on an airplane, take it on board with you. There is nothing worse than watching a guitar come down the baggage shoot with the rest of the bags. Don't leave your guitar unattended anywhere. Just like your children they can wonder off never to be seen again. Don't lean your guitar against the wall, this will put too much stress on the neck and can easily slide and fall over breaking the neck off, use a guitar stand. Do play your guitar as much as possible it likes this, the more you play with it the happier it will be. Don't let it sit on a stand and get dusty, keep it clean and polished to protect the finish. If your guitars are not playing as well as you feel they should be, it may be time for a basic setup. If the guitar is in really bad shape then maybe you should take it to a guitar shop for service, however most basic guitar setup is fairly easy and can be handled at home with the proper tools. Basic tools needed for a guitar setups are. New strings, WD40 oil, Allan wrench sets (Metric or SAE depending on the country or origin), A tuner, guitar polish and soft cloth, steel wool, a steel rule ,string cutters, Phillips screw driver, flat head screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and the proper truss rod wrench for your guitar. Optional for truss rod adjustment. Capo, metric feeler gauges.

For FloydRose® tremolo systems I recommend propping the bridge up with a Fuzzy Stick, basically this is a piece of wood that is 5mm thick, 30mm wide with a length of 100mm, covered with either cloth, felt or rubber. I use this to hold the bridge up during string changes.

First lets start by removing all the strings and clean all the parts. If you have a Floyd Rose® tremolo try this. Take the tremolo arm and press it down so that the strings are slack. Then insert the Fuzzy Stick between the bridge and the body to hold the bridge up while you remove the strings. This will help in a few ways. 1) It will hold the bridge up so that string change is easier. 2) It will keep the springs in the bridge so they don't shoot off. 3) It will make it much easier to re-string the guitar. Note: ( 9 Volt Batteries also works well to hold up the bridge) Now that the strings are off the guitar clean it up. Use the polish and a cloth for all the painted surfaces. Its good to clean around the pickups, bridge and headstock while you have the strings off.

Loose Parts. Its best to tighten all the screws periodically on the guitar, at each string change I tighten the following parts, neck bolts, bridge lock screws, Top lock mounting hardware, tuning machine heads top and back, remember "Loose Parts Break Guitars" Always make sure that the strap pins are tight in the wood so they don't pull out. If the strap pin does not tighten then remove it and put a dowel in the hole and re-drill it. If this is a problem just put some tooth picks in the hole than reattach the strap pin, this will easily tighten it up. Use WD40 or motor oil on all open metal parts, these are the screws that are not plated, for example Allan screws in the bridge or some adjustable pole pieces on the pickups. Fretboard Maintenance At each string change I clean the fretboard and the frets, I like the frets to be very smooth with no rough spots so I use #0000 steel wool with the grain of the neck on rosewood and ebony fretboard's and then Lemon oil on the wood. On finished maple boards I use the steel wool only on the tops of the frets and then I use guitar polish on the fingerboard finish to clean it up. After the frets are cleaned I polish them on a metal buffing wheel, the one I have is mounted but a small buffing wheel in a drill works well also.

Now re-string the guitar with the proper gauge of strings. If you are going to change string gauges (say from .009's to .010s) then this is the time to do it. Depending on the type of bridge you have the strings will either go through a block, lock in at the saddles or go through the back of the bridge. (On a FloydRose® tremolo cut off the ball ends and lock them in the bridge. Tighten the strings and remove the stick that is holding the bridge up, then re-tune the guitar, remember FloydRose® tremolos take some time to tune because they float. (What I do is actually over tune the low strings in the beginning and as you tune up the higher strings the lower strings will go flat and come back down in tune.) After you have replaced the strings tune the guitar to A=440 or whatever tuning you might use. After tuning, stretch them by pulling up on each one around where the neck meets the body, this is good for pulling everything tight so that the guitar does not go out of tune.

First if you have a FloydRose® style tremolo than make sure that the bridge is sitting parallel to the surface of the guitar. Remember that the fulcrum point on a locking tremolo is well in front of the actual saddles. If you depress the tremolo arm then the strings raise, what this means is that if the bridge is sitting high in the back than the action is higher than it could be. To remedy this adjust the screws in the back of the tremolo cavity to tighten or loosen the springs.

At this point there are a few things that can make a guitar play great or make it really hard to play. I will explain them in detail. The Truss Rod. Most guitar necks are made from wood, (not all but that is another subject). Wood does tend to move over time and may need to be adjusted. To adjust the neck they designed the truss rod. The truss rod is basically a steel bar with a threaded shaft used for tightening or relieving the neck. (There are many style of truss rods out there and I will get into detail about each one and what the advantages are of each in another chapter, for now lets concentrate on the adjustments.) The neck should be set as straight as possible and then set with a small amount of relief, relief is described as a small concave warp that allows the strings to pass over the next fret without the string touching the next fret. There are three types of neck conditions and you should understand each one. The way that I sight the neck is to should up and place the guitars strap pin on my foot. Hold the guitar upright with your left hand on the horn of the body. Do not touch the neck because the headstock needs to be free floating if you hold the headstock then it will give you a false reading. If the neck is warped it will cause the action in the middle of the neck to be higher and cause the middle notes to play sharp. This should be tightened. If the neck is over bowed than the notes will not be able to pass over the next fret causing fret buzz this should be loosened.

Fender® guitar company uses a feeler gauge at the 7th fret, while a capo is placed on the neck at the first fret. Your right hand is fretting the low and high strings where the neck joins the body (Usually around the 17th fret) They use between a .20mm and a .25mm gauge and adjust the truss rod until the gauge just fits between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string. This is a good reference but I still prefer to set the necks by eye, mainly because not all necks are perfectly straight on both sides. My eyes can see the difference and then I can adjust accordingly.

Nut Height This to me is the most important way to make a guitar play well. The nut height should be low, (on my guitars it just passes over the first fret) most factories set the nut at the first fret low string .5mm and the high side .4mm. To measure the distance place a gauge between the first fret and the bottom of the string. This is OK but I prefer it set lower, around .3mm over the first fret on all strings. This is my personal preference for my playing style and if you are a hard player I would suggest you stay around .5mm. Any higher and the action on the guitar will be higher and cause the notes to play sharp when they are fretted. For an example while holding the guitar in playing position use your left hand to raise the string at the nut then look at the action at the12th fret you will see it change. On a Locking nut you can add or remove shims under the nut to get the proper nut height, If the nut is as low as it can be set and is still not low enough it needs to be worked on by a repair person that will either mill the nut or file the wood area (Note this is a very delicate operation and should be done only by guitar repair people) If the nut is cut from bone, plastic, graphite or brass you will need to file the nut using special files for each size string. I will explain how to do this but it's not that easy, I would not recommend everyone to do it. One slip of the file and the nut will need to be replaced. The easiest way to avoid a mistake is to use a feeler gauge at the nut. First measure the height of the fret, say it is 1mm then you want the nut to be .5mm over the fret so use a 1.5mm gauge at the nut and file the slot to the top of the metal. This will make the nut exactly .5mm over the first fret.   Action at the bridge Again different bridges have different ways of setting the action. A locking tremolo and a Gibson® style bridge will have two studs at either side that raise or lower the bridge. Strat style tremolos have individual height adjustment for each string, and some modern tremolos will have both. To actually give you a standard is not a good idea because everyone plays there own way. I like really low action but this will give a heavy player too much buzz. I will only say one thing set it where you want it to be. If you bend allot than you will probably like a little higher action, if you are a fast note player then lower action will probably be what you want. Remember this is your guitar so set it as you like.

If you are adjusting the individual string saddles then you need to pay attention to the fretboard radius. This means the middle strings will need to be set higher. A good way to do this is to first set the high and low strings to where you like them, then measure the distance between the top of the fret and the bottom of the string on both high and low strings at the 12 fret. Next measure the middle strings at the same setting as the low and high strings (The low strings for the low string setting and the high strings for the higher string setting) Play the guitar and adjust the action on each string so it feels correct.

Intonation. Proper intonation is very important. Intonation is set by adjusting the length of the string at the saddle either longer or shorter. Guitar scales are divided in the middle at the 12th fret. Basically this is half way to the bridge, (On a 25.5" scale the 12 fret will fall at 12.75") Because of the difference in string tension and fret distance there needs to be a saddle adjustment to get the proper intonation.

Setting intonation. First tune your guitar on a tuner, make sure that all the open notes are in perfect tune with the tuner. Then start with the low string and fret the note at the twelfth fret, compare it to the open note. If the fretted note is sharp the saddle must be adjusted back. If the fretted note is flat the saddle needs to be moved forward. Both the open note and the fretted note should be the same on the tuner. Follow this method for all the other strings. Now its time to Jam. Play the guitar all over and make sure that there is no buzzing and that it s comfortable for you. If necessary make any adjustments to the guitar at this time to make it play the way you want. Remember this is your guitar and it should be setup the way you like it.

Pickup Height The higher the pickup the more output but also the greater chance that the strings will be effected by the magnets of the pickups and cause a strange sound from the amp. This will also pull the notes sharp on a tuner. I suggest adjusting the pickups to 2.5mm below the string when the last fret is fretted. Then adjust as you like for the sound you desire.

Here is some information I wrote for setting up a new guitar.