The ONLY person i trusted with my Les Paul has lost my business due to his cobid hysteria.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sorry, saw that one after I posted.
I started learning to work on my guitars for a similar reason. Nobody around here I trusted. Guy at the local music
store in mod 90’s was a joke, he literally tie guiitar strings to the tuner posts.
Another guitar player in our band asked me if I could redo the setup on his guitar, he took it tot his guy to have strings replaced. Nothing else, just put strings on. Isaid OK, started to check out his strat. Everything had been changed. Intonation, action, pickup height, and when Istarted to remove strings, found out they were oiterally tied to the tuner posts. Took me almost 30 munites just to remove the strings, then another hour to reset everything.
I’ve never let anyone else tyouch my guitars since that day. Had to do guitars for both our other guitar players, same story, everything changed when he wasn’t supposed to touch a thing, just replace the strings, which any 10 year old can do. I was already halfway there, took a guitar to a music store in Baton rouge, let him put strings on for me, which I could easily do myself, then that night onstage the neck pickup fell out against the strings, made an awful noise...(Univox strat copy w/ 3 humbuckers). He had removed the trim ring and put it on someone else’s guitar, then denied he did it. I had to buy another one to put on a borrowed guitar, I was not a happy camper. But I was a walking bad advertisement from then on too.
that’s when Istarted learning to do most of my own wortk, except for the difficult stuff, nut replacements, filing and crowning frets, truss rod adjustments...the guy who tied strings on changed all that, I now do everything but fret replacements myself. Just finished replacing capacitors in a hollow body Ibanez AG 75 a few days ago, thats a chore...now I have to do it again and replace all 4 volume/tone pots. Fish everything through with a string...yish...I’d rather eat shoe polish...
How Ilearned to cut nut slots...by surprise...
took my Takamine acoustic to a frioend who owned a vintage guitarsop,bet repair guy in town. Ihad already made and installed the nut, looks like factory, just needed slots cu, alread had marked for spacing.
He said “well, it’s time for you to learn how”, and handed me his nut files...YIKES...talk about scred...if I screw up, I’ll have to buy another bone blank, file and sand for an hour, glue it in place, and start all over with the nut files...and might not get it right again...it only takes about 3 seconds too much filing and the slot is too deep, you start over because it will buzz aainst the 1st fret. Not deep enough is no problem, it will just pull out of tune when you fret it. Take another swipe or two with a nut file and play it again. I’ve seen him do it 4 times...on one string...shake his head and grab the file again, detune and pull the string to the side...grrrrr
I got really lucky, I hit it right the first time, I’m still playing the Takamine onstage but it’s about time for a fret filing, it’s developing fret grooves.
Ain’t it fun being a guitar player? 4 hours a day practice for half your life, 40 years of lugging heavy tube amps around, then you have to learn to rebuild your own guitars because the local “luthiers” can’t fix their way out of a wet paper sack...
YIKES!
I do the small stuff myself too, but the COVID-Crazy-Luther did a masterful job stripping the inoperative guts out of the robot and turning it back into a REAL Les Paul.
Anything involving a soldering iron freaks me out.
My late husband was good at electronics, but I just do the actual set-up stuff (Strings, truss-rod, set-up, tuning machines, etc.