Basic Care of Your Guitar (and Yourself).

Guitars like moderate temperatures and humidity. Get a humidifier for the case (and maybe the room).  And keep cool and away from the sun.  The guitar, too.  And from heaters when they’re out.

Don’t ever paint or use furniture products or put stickers on your acoustic guitar (this doesn’t include airbrushing). It will smother the sound and make the guitar hard to repair. Many people also avoid using silicone guitar sprays on their guitars for the same reasons.

Feel free to do all these things and more to your electric guitar as long as you don’t mess up the mechanics or electronics.

Think ‘auto body shop’ when repairing guitar cosmetics, particularly on electric guitars. Many of the same techniques, processes and products are used (more on this in a later installment).

The deft use of common household items like twist ties, WD-40 and ‘krazy glue’ can really help make your guitar sound great, make it easier to tune, easier to play, and take stickers and sticky stuff off it. More later, on "action" and other related topics.

How you physically play is a very important consideration.  Particularly, whether you’ll usually be standing up or sitting down when you play. Stratocasters were especially designed by Leo Fender to be played standing up. Many Ovation guitars had to be played standing up because their synthetic bowl bouts were so slippery and non-ergonomic.

AVOID PLAYING LOUD FOR PROLONGED PERIODS.

Avoid repetitive stress and other injury to your hands and fingers. Be careful when removing and handling strings so that you are not injured by their very sharp points, and dispose of them immediately, string by string, by sticking them inside an empty aluminum can and recycle. Always use a pegwinder, and a bridge pin removal tool.  You can get a nice little kit fortuning and stringing guitars for less than $10.

Age is good for solid wood. Generally, avoid laminate guitars. By all means get a vintage guitar for vintage tone to suit the music you play and the way you like to play it.

But go to the local music store too, and have someone you like there show you the latest products and features. You can see what a good guitar plays and sounds like. You'll also have a place to buy your supplies, and ask questions of people in person, which almost always is going to provide you better info on what you specifically are interested in and a better experience.  Maybe a new friend.

An acoustic guitar neck with a truss rod (more on this later as well) can be adjusted with an Allen wrench to straighten it. Most times the neck is "bowed" and the rod needs to be turned to the right, and sometimes there's a "hump" the other way.  Deal with this using the ol' lefty loosey righty tighty, with the strings on, and loosened just enough to remove the neck cover plate so you can work with the bowed or humped neck..

Wind strings counterclockwise. Tuck the string underneath itself and hold it down there and at the nut as you turn it with a peg turner with your other hand.

Stratocaster guitars are strung through the body, through the back.  In other words, to re-string a Strat type, loosen the tuner until you can easily remove the string from the peg by turning it clockwise, then turn the guitar upside down and push-and-pull the string out. To install a new string, stick the string through the hole in the tremolo cover plate on the back and pull the string out the front up and over the string's individual saddle on the front.  A lot of players just leave the back cover plate off (or lose or scratch it up).

The most frustrating thing about playing guitar, and a real big reason people stop playing, is that the crummy tuners that came with their guitar can't keep it in tune. Replace the stock tuners on a guitar if tuning an stability and precision is at all a question, it's as easy as using a screwdriver (but sometimes a drill and filler.) Ask us about places that support TGC to order tuners and other supplies.

If the pickups on the electric guitar sound crappy, replace them too - if you can hook up a sound system or pc you can do this.  And there's a lot more you can do with pickups if you are just a little electrically-inclined.

Think globally act locally. Great guitars come out of Asia and have for 50 years now. But get a local luthier, who can strobe tune an electric guitar and otherwise do a ‘set up’ for you.

The set up is crucial - and the most common mistake people make is to not have their guitars set up at the store or by a local luthier or hobbyist. Setup generally includes checking frets, repairing or replacing as necessary, and polishing them; adjusting the nut which holds the strings at the top of the neck, so that the strings slots are smooth and recut as needed; setting the action (more on this later) - how far the strings are from the fretboard at various places on the neck. Action is adjusted low, medium or high based on how and how well you play; the guitar saddle for the acoustic (the white part that nests in the bridge that can be made of plastic or real or synthetic bone) can be shaped for proper intonation so that the nut and saddle fit each other and the neck radius precisely (more on this later); neck adjustments are made on an acoustic as needed again it's (‘lefty loosey, righty tighty’ with that little Allen wrench you get with the guitar) and on an electric, where the neck bolts on or is set (or reset); tuners are tightened, adjusted and replaced right away as needed; electric guitars have their intonation set with a strobe tuner, and archtops have their floating bridge adjusted; electric guitar tremolos (with that white-capped 'whammy bar" attached) are adjusted for smooth action and accurate return to pitch stability; and finally a little bit of lemon oil rubbed into the fretboard.