I was always into tinkering as a kid and a mechanic for many years so it was no big deal to take things apart to see what mads them tick.
The drummer in my first band had a set of drums made up of different colors and I stripped them and and covered them in black. Guitar player wanted to paint his fender mustang so when it was ready to be put back together I ended up doing it. New strings, or pickups, it seemed like I was the one that they pointed to for that stuff.
Anyway, setting up instruments has taken a major leap lately with friends learning through word of mouth that I do a good job when it comes to fixing guitars. It is enjoyable and without watching endless TWoodford videos I would never have stepped up and begun another journey to make guitars better. I am not doing this for money but for the exeperience as it is an expensive rabbit hole to go down and I know my limits. The bass I bought needed a lot of work and is ready to play now so I will take my ibanez apart to give it the same treatment that the others have received. Once I finish that, I am taking the fender apart again to get the body pristine and the pearl white sprayed again. Once that is done the ibanez will go back in the case for who knows how long.
Meanwhile my best man, and former band leader, has three more guitars he wants me to work on for him and his two sons asked if I would set up their les pauls. My biggest fear is making a mistake on one of these guitars.
A simple secret on working on expensive instruments is to work on a lot of cheap instruments. Once you made enough mistakes, you tend to make less of them.
That is why when I started getting into a big learning how to become a guitar tech then eventually become a luthier, I worked on my own s*** I didnāt even offer to work on nobody elseās I did mine My rogue LX 205b my 5 string Iāve been taking it apart put it back together so many times every screw hole except for the neck is strip I have to literally drill every screw all out and plug it with with a quarter inch dowel sorry about the punctuations Iām too Iām just pushing the button I aināt worried about the function right now Iām just talking and putting my two cents in and hold my phone I aināt got time for that but yeah I just had to say if you if you learn wanting to learn how to get how to do guitar work either start with your own s*** or get a bunch of cheap ass s*** how you can even go to team Moon by a brand a brand new f****** basement guitar for like $50 and rebuild it Thatās what Iāve done both my fertilizes But yeah enjoy I had to put my two sense in
I finally broke down and found a decent can of Johnsonās paste wax on eBay for 40 bucks It was it was the best looking can in the s*** the wax inside actually look like itās there was a good shape.. as soon as that gets here I pull that pick guard off which is just sitting in place and apply that to that body and finish her up and put it back together and hopefully I hope that I can get at least at least a grand for her.
I have a question about that though. What makes a guitar bass worth so much money? Iām just curious about it. Is this what Iām hoping to get Iāll settle for like $700. Thatās because sheās still all original I had I did have to replace the pickup rings cuz they were missing and one volume pot or one volume now Thatās it and I will have to Saturday outfit Jack back in Thatās it everything else is in the exact same spot it was and I even got the original case that she was born with so donāt find out though But yeah Iām just curious what makes the guitar worth so much damn money I kind of got an idea but I just want to hear from from somebody else besides besides my own head you know
See, Iāve done that with all my cheap guitars. Now I have an expensive bass and need to adjust the brass nut and Iām terrified. I know worst case Iāll ruin the nut and will have to get a new one but the nerves are there. Wish me luck the nut file arrives today!
I have eleven of my own instruments to work on. Word of mouth is getting out of hand and there must be a few pros in my area that will take care of them.
Well, me too but it turned into a trade up hobby for me,
It started with me leaving my bass at the local shop for 3 months and got nothing done on it and the tech was the Fender tech guy who moonlight at this shop. I asked for a pretty simple thing to add a non EMG pickup to a EMG solder less system and set up with a Fretless neck. The guy couldnāt do it literally, couldnāt do it told me it canāt be done. , oh yeah?
Ya! Thatās the point. The job of the tech is to do a āsimpleā work on the instrument. Now anything outside my wheelhouse including āplekā I take it to my new local shop 35 miles away,
I do my own work. The electrical stuff is a piece of cake for me. I happen to be an electrical engineer. I studied some of these circuits when I was in college.
When I hear ācanātā from a tech/maintenance person, I donāt always believe it is wonāt. A large portion of these tech guys only know how to replace a part with exactly the same new part. They canāt think any further than that. So if you ask for some special stuff, they just donāt know how to do it. Or maybe donāt want to spend the time to figure it out.
By the time Iāve disassembled it to see how it all works, itās pretty much up to me to put it all back together again, so I guess yeah, I do my own tech work
Seriously though, much like @howard said, I couldnāt imagine not doing my own tech work. Iām capable of doing it, and in those cases where itās something Iāve never done - sweet! That means in addition to doing tech work, I also get to learn how to do something new - which is pretty much the best thing ever!
If you start small and research you can usually work out a way to do it, start on things that donāt matter too much and work up.
Even small things are valuable and a bit of lateral thinking helps.
On my āOrangeā Bass (Obass), for example, I never liked the wide string spacing. I wanted to keep this one pretty stock so would not change the bridge/saddle. Eventually it dawned on me that the saddle barrels were likely interchangeable with a smaller spaced set and 10 minutes later it was perfect.
To give the tech the benefit of the doubt, sometimes itās a case of a backlog of instruments needing simple stuff thatās bread and butter to him, and itās literally not worth their time to do anything that would take longer.
I used to go to an old school barber and saw that he had taken a shave off his menu and asked why. He said it wasnāt worth it. It was only him working the shop and he always had a line for mensā basic haircuts for $X. It would take him Y amount of time to do a shave for $Z (which was less than a haircut) and heās also have to stock the supplies and take time to maintain the razors and extra cleaning. The numbers just didnāt make sense to keep it as a service.
That said, some ātechsā are just barely above worthless.
I used to collect and use straight razors and yeah the maintenance is an actual factor. Probably 15 mins to properly hone each razor and with any volume he would need to probably daily.
My dear old father instilled in me and my brother as kids the attitude of taking things apart.
If something was broken, rather than buy new weād take it apart. Even if we couldnāt fix it then we might learn something in the process.
His attitude was you canāt make it more broken, so give it a go.
I fixed my neighbours snow blower this winter when they were away. My wife said how did you know how to fix it? Well take it apart, work out what part does what thing and then go from there. Right? (It was a sticky carburetor float for our younger listeners)
