I was just wondering how often if people do at all, get their Guitar serviced by a professional. I used to be in a Refused - style hardcore band and after about 20 gigs, my guitars were worse for wear. Luckily I have a friend who does it for half price and refits pickups, strings etc. Does anyone else do this or do they do it themselves?

i wouldn't do it with a guitar shop "professional"...they're the music equivalent of garages. you know the ones that take you in because your car makes a slight grinding noise changing into sixth gear, and you end up replacing all the valves, 4 new tyres etc.? same with guitar shops, you can have one dodgy peg and you'll end up paying for a new neck, floyd rose and a sanded-down-and-re-finished head

anyway, don't bother, it's lucky you have a good friend, my mates dad will help me with any problems. by the time you get enough knowledge to take your damaged/broken guitar to a shop and say "fix this" without getting fucked around, that's enough knowledge to finish the job yourself.

I do everything myself, including intonation, replacing saddles, all that shit.

I can't re-do the frets though, but I never had to yet.

Well, if its just putting on new strings, then you can do that your self
if its something more serious, and you're having doubts about doing it yourself, then I'd take it to your friend.

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Yea, my mate had broken the output jack on his; it just needed the wire to be stripped back and be soldered to a new jack... he took it to a shop and he ended up paying £65, and having the action altered, a new nut, and had all the frets filed and polished. A right waste of £64.

there you are young corpse, the voice of experience reasons!

thats goddamn terrible man what happened to your friend. i've talked my way out of it, it's in another thread way back: i was talking about getting some lower gauge strings for my guitar, .12s or .13s instead of the standard .9s that i was using, giving my guitar a sound weaker than a drunken ethiopian after he just blew his load. anyway the fool at the guitar shop tried to convince me that i needed a new neck. the stink of rip-off was stronger than a lebanese fertilizer plant, so i simply told him "just gimme the strings." and i saved my dough and all was well.

Well, i had said to him that i'd fix it for him, if he waited a few days until i had gone to Maplin and got him a new jack.... but he wanted it fixed before then, even though he's a drummer and doesn't really play guitar anymore :P He seemed really pleased with the results though, the tech obviously did a good job of convincing him that it was all a good idea :P

Thanks for the info guys, I will keep my wallet away from the professionals. I don;t want to start a new thread for something quite similiar - what is the worst you have ever done to your guitar?
My worst is dropping the guitar after a gig and a pickup fell out! Crazy stuff

Since I play bass, I press the strings really hard without even that much effort. I wear the fret wire down fast, so lately I've been trying to play as softly as possible.

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Why does your Bass even have frets?

I dont goto "Professionals" I can pretty much do anything to a guitar, I find most "Luthiers" are actually just idiots with screwdrivers.

Read, you have the internet.... thats infinite knowledge.

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Haha, I'm going to Luithery school you assholes.

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Does that come with a free set of screwdrivers?

I do all my own maintenance and even scalloped one of my guitars and filed the frets smooth myself because the frets were worn so low that fret-buzz was unavoidable at that point.

When my Jackson's frets get bad enough I'll probably just buy a new neck since it's a bolt-on.

You build 5 guitars in the course of a year and keep them all, plus you learn how to build all the tools neccesary for proper guitar building. I can basic innotation, action, neck adjustments and if need be I'm pretty sure I could manage fret work, but I can't build an amazing guitar with a 2 inch flame top,full colored fretboard inlay that plays like a dream from scratch...yet.

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been there, haha. remember I played bass for years, frets on basses just don't last that long, but DR strings really saved my frets, they're expensive but they're not fret-eating strings like ernie balls and d'addario's are.

Cool, most "Luthier's" around here never took any classes... their all retards.

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Lately I can do every adjustment to my guitar. But next week I'll get my brand new kahler bridge I wonder if that's a pain in the ass to install

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