Setups and repairs..do you do your own?

Do you do your own guitar maintenence?

  • Yes, all of it

    Votes: 21 42.9%

  • Yes, the minor stuff

    Votes: 24 49.0%

  • No, I take it to a tech for everything

    Votes: 3 6.1%

  • You mean I'm supposed to do stuff to this thing?

    Votes: 1 2.0%
  • Total voters
    49
For me, the first setup is always done by a tech. From then on, and unless I need some major work, I'll do the restringing, intonation, and action stuff myself.
 
Thanks to my uncle passing along a lot of grampa's luthier knowledge to me, I typically do all of my own work, unless, I am completely, and utterly stymied by a problem, or I don't have the proper tools to do the work (and I'm not about to cough up major money for tools that will get very little use). It was also helpful for me, to help an old boyfriend of mine (who also played guitar), make some of his own guitars. He did most of the wood work, and setup work (with me lending a helping hand), and I did all of the electronics work. IMO, it's worth it to at least know how to do a basic setup on your guitars.
 
SnoMan97 said:
I do all my own repairs and mods to my guitars and amps. I even dabbled in pedal building a bit. I just don't have the cash to pay for a tech. Even if I did, I don't like to trust that stuff to anyone else. I am better at repairing and modding my guitars than I am at playing them.
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Exactly the same here.
 
I do all of it that I can get my hands on, and I have seen a huge improvement in my skills over the last 3 years. Once I got over my fears of messing up my guitars, I was fine. To further my knowledfe I do my friends' guitars too.
 
i need to learn how to do my own set ups. when i get my new pups in they will be the first thing i ever do to my guitar.
 
i'm learning... i finally invested in a soldering iron... now i just need to learn to be patient... jello is doing two of my axes for me:grin:
 
I do everything from re-wire to fret leveling. If anyone ever needs assistance, I will help if I can to tell you how I do it. Once you have the tools that work, the rest is just putting time in fixing your own stuff for a while and getting it all figured out. I haven't ruined one yet....knocking on wood....lol!

Honestly if anyone has any questions, fire away and I will do what I can to steer you in the right direction.
 
I do wiring, soldering, pickup replacement, bizarre-ass wiring schemes, nut filing, stuff like that. I have little or no experience in fret work, but it's something I'd like to learn.
 
I do my own set ups and electronic work. I have dabbled with fret-work a little, but I think I need a little more practice before I feel comfortable doing it on one of my nicer guitars. I enjoy it though it seems to be harder to find the time these days.
 
I do the little stuff myself. All the basic set up stuff is not really a problem for me, although I had the rewiring of my RG2127X done by someone else coz it's a bit too busy in there for my liking. Plus, I needed the knife edges of the trem worked on, and there's a tiny pain in the arse cable that runs from the saddles to a PCB in the control cavity for the piezos... yeah, not touching that.

Basic stuff like intonation, truss rod, nut filing, saddle adjustment (acoustic), etc., I'll take care of. Frets? Hello Mr. Tech!

Most of it I guess coz when I started out as a kid, I didn't have the money to pay someone to set my guitars up, so I just read what I could on the internet and screwed around with it myself.
 
Iff (b)uild, then (r)epair.

I b, therefore, I r.

Hell, I even go look for trashed or poor quality guitars to tinker with. When done I give them away. Unfortunately, the economy has taken a bite out of me for this and I am to much a loner to know many that would pay for the service.

I love SS frets, but hate working on them.
 
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The first and last time I took a guitar to a tech for a full setup, he told me the problem with it was that it was made for 9s and I couldn't use the strings I had on it (11s)....he restrung it with 9s and included a note about how to tune a guitar properly (which I specifically had tuned to drop d at the time and told him so when I dropped it off).

Needless to say that pissed me off to no end and I realized that if that monkey could offer "pro" setups & make a living at it, than obviously it wasn't very difficult. I've done everything myself since and that was a long time ago.
 
I haven't tried shaping/installing a new nut or done any fret work but I now do basic setups and maintenance on all my electrics (string height, truss rod, intonation, etc..). For acoustics about the only thing I know how to do is change the strings and adjust the trust rod. Although my wife's classical has no truss-rod so I have no idea how to go about eliminating the bad fret buzz that it currently has. I guess I'll be dropping that off with a tech.
 
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Yep... It's fairly simple, if you are good with tools... Takes less investment for the tools that one trip to the luthier...
 
I do most things myself. Set-up, intonation, anything electronic. There are some things I don't feel comfortable yet doing myself, such as refrets and neck sets. I'll be having some mods done to one of my guitars this summer. I'm changing the bridge from a free floater to a Bigsby, changing pickups and tuners. The bridge work I'm going to have done by the guy that built it.

CustomGuitar001.jpg
 
I started to learn how to setup my guitars after my 2nd year of playing them...I know how to file and shape my own nuts (for electrics and acoustics) and compensated saddles (for acoustics) from bone blanks...now I just need to tinker with soldering the electronics and work on leveling and crowning the frets.
 
I do it all myself. Not just guitars either...home repairs, plumbing, etc. etc. Mostly because I'm such a cheap-ass bastard.
 
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