DIY Maintenance on Your Guitar
Pro Tips For DIY Guitar Maintenance!
Here are some simple tricks to improve your DIY guitar maintenance. Learning how to do better maintenance and care for your guitar properly will minimize the chance of common preventable problems that we all run into from time to time.
Learn How To Take Care Of Your Gear
If you have anything of value you need to understand how to take care of it. This is certainly true when it comes to your acoustic or electric guitar or bass. Even if you rely on a luthier or guitar tech to do all of your service work, repairs and upgrades….you can still help with the care and maintenance of your guitars.
1. Handle Your Guitar With Care
Almost every dent, scratch and abrasion could have been prevented. Most of this damage occurs from a momentary lapse of judgment. From banging your guitar into something, placing it where it was able to fall, or failing to use a protective case…..most damage is avoidable.
Don’t eat or drink near around your guitar (yeah right….I know it’s hard to follow this one). One spilled drink can cause electrical problems, cause screws or hardware to rust, and sometimes damage wood finishes.
Protect it from other peoplebecause sometimes roommates, kids, and house or apartment guests can’t keep their hands off of your guitar. If you’re working on it and need to stop, either put it away or ask them to not handle it.
2. Protect The Surfaces While Doing Maintenance
When it comes to working on your guitar, always place it on a padded, soft surface. Minimize reaching over the guitar for tools and other items that you could drop on it.
3. Easy On Your Screws
When you’re replacing screws, keep in mind that they’re not holding down the much. Tighten them snug but don’t crank them down super tight.
You can lube the threads of a screw with wax so that the screw goes in easy, comes out easy and doesn’t rust.
Always…always…always use the appropriately sized screwdriver. If you use the wrong size screwdriver tip (phillips or flat) your on the road to a quick way to strip out the head or maybe just “mess it up”.
4. Periodic Fitness Check
From screws holding strap buttons, hardware and knobs to pickguards and tuners…..you should periodically make certain things are not coming loose. If not, you’ll almost certainly discover one day that a screw has come loose or gone missing….hopefully not dropping the guitar to the ground unexpectedly.
5. Keep Cover Plates Installed
Believe it or not, the top guitar manufacturers actually know what they are doing – including putting cover plates on cavities. If it made a guitar sound better (and would lower manufacturing costs) they would leave them off. Forget what your friends say about “it looks cool” or “you can change strings faster” or “your tone will be awesome”. Cover plates are protective! Use them…..PERIOD!
6. Clean Your Guitar
It’s easy enough to play your guitar, then just set it aside. Investing a little time to care for your guitar’s appearance will keep it looking great and also preserve its playability. Over time, sweat, dirt, and oils build up on the guitar’s finish and fingerboard and will slowly break it down. Especially if your sweat has a high acid content (low PH balance), it can actually cause the finish to deteriorate. Sweat contains water, acids, salt, and several minerals that are corrosive to finishes and hardware. When you add in environmental issues, it’s no wonder our guitars get so dirty in a short period of time!
7. Hangers Instead of Racks
Using wall-mounted hangers or stands that hang the instrument is vastly superior to storing your guitars in racks. Over time, an instrument hanging vertically will not develop neck issues like one stored in a rack. Gravity, the distribution of weight, and effects of pressure are undeniable factors in shaping wood (good or bad).
Hanging racks and hangers give more space for more guitars and will motivate you to play since your guitar is already out. When you do get some type of hanging rack or stand….make sure that it has something to keep the guitar in it!
8. Some Humidity….Please…
Wood is highly responsive humidity in the air. This is especially true with acoustic guitars. Ideally, you can keep your guitar in a climate-controlled environment where relative humidity stays around 45-55%. If you keep your guitar in a reasonable level of humidity and stable temperatures you’ll find playability (tuning, etc.) is easier to manage. Extreme dryness or humidity levels can actually ruin an acoustic guitar.
9. Stable Temperatures Prefered
Temperature is another out-of-mind factor in guitar maintenance. In addition to humidity, wood is also very sensitive to temperature changes. If you ever heard an old house creak or pop at night its because the wood is adjusting to the temperature changing. Your guitar will do the same thing. Too much expansion and contraction can crack finishes and cause laminated joints to break. At the very least, the expansion and contraction will play havoc on your neck (meaning tuning, intonation and neck relief). Try to keep your guitar in a relatively stable temperature range.
10. String Changes – A MUST!
Yeah, guitar strings cost money (especially if you’re a bass player!) and are not a glorious purchase. It’s easy to slowly get used to those old, corroded, dirty, worn strings and not notice what it does to your playability and your tone. Dropping a few bucks on a good set of strings will make your guitar tone and playability better and they will “feel” better.