Guitar How-To

Archive for the ‘Guitars’ Category

Your guitar warranty covers faults in the manufacture. If you are having trouble playing a new guitar because of the action, for instance, it’s doubtful you can return it under warranty. This is why inexperienced guitar players are advised to take someone who knows about guitars with them when they buy their first instrument.

Any damage you inflict on your guitar is also unlikely to be covered by the warranty unless you can convince the seller that you were not careless in handling it. Read your warranty carefully if you live in an area where extreme temperatures occur because you might find that cracking due to dryness in the air or damage from extreme cold are excluded.

Basically, your warranty covers poor workmanship on the part of the manufacturer of your guitar. Or if the materials the guitar is made of are substandard. When you but an acoustic guitar that has a pickup built in, you need to be sure that the electronic bits are covered by the guitar’s warranty or if they are covered by their own separate agreement.

A dirty, uncared for guitar fretboard is a sight to be avoided, but many guitar players look after their instruments too much. The dirt that builds up is old grease and dead skin cells which is not a good look if you pass your guitar to someone else to play.

The fretboard of you guitar is made from a hardwood that is meant to stand up to all the punishment your fingers and your storage and transport methods can hand out. Dark woods are used for the front of the neck so that marks form oily fingers don’t show up. It is especially chosen to resist abrasions. A finish applied to the wood in the factory would wear out from use very quickly so when you get your guitar, the neck is unfinished.

If you have a cheap guitar, you might find that your neck looks blotchy. This is because some of the cheaper guitars are painted with a coating to make the look nice and shiny. These kinds of finishes are just window-dressing and don’t last longer than a year or two.

A guitar fretboard absorbs moisture from the air when the weather is humid and the water goes back into the air when the weather is dry. The fretboard is glued onto the guitar neck so the underside is protected fro the action of moisture in the air by the sealing quality of the glue.

So one side of the fretboard is expanding and shrinking because of the moisture and the underside stays stable because it is protected. This can eventually lead to the fretboard warping and cracking and the whole neck is vulnerable to warping.

So we are left with the need to seal the fretboard against the danger of warping and cracking. There is a range of preparations made for the purpose of protecting the fretboard. Most of these should be avoided. The general rule for looking after a guitar fretboard is to clean it when it is dirty. Never use polish of any kind. A little liquid soap will clean grimy areas and if your fretboard looks dull, use some kind of fretboard cleaner like Formby’s or Fret Doctor.

Some preparations like lemon oil will leave a layer that attracts more dirt. Don’t clean your fretboard until you can see the dirt. For most people this will mean about once a year. Use a “magic eraser” type cleaning pad and perhaps a little naptha on it.

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There’s many ways to paint a guitar body. There’s quite a few stages to even the simplest method and if you aren’t experienced at woodworking and spraypainting you’ll be on a steep learning curve. Find an old cheap guitar to work on for your first attempt and resign yourself to not getting a professional looking result the first time.

Visit Guitar Reranch to get the details on preparation, sanding, spraying, removing wiring, etc. Even if you don’t buy their products you should make use of their tutorial and forum because all I’m giving you is the basics so that you know what’s involved.

Speaking of products, if you don’t want to use a spray painting unit you can get aerosol cans of guitar paint in your favorite brand’s colors, or you can use car paint.

Your painting space should be somewhere it won’t matter if you get overspray on the walls, and it should have walls because wind is not good for spraypainting. But you NEED good ventilation so you don’t die for your art. Take the neck off your guitar and put a coathanger or something in one of the holes and hang it up. You can’t do a good spray job if you have to keep stopping and turning the guitar.

You will need to remove the lacquer from the guitar body and sand it smooth. Fill any holes and prepare yourself for your first guitar body painting experience. You will be putting some primer on next and then giving the guitar another sanding. You need to end up with a smooth, primed surface for the paint to stick to. If you don’t have that, don’t expect too much of your paint job.

You’ll probably be putting on about six coats of paint, the first one or two will look weird because of the color of the primer but keep applying coats till you get the color you want. There will be some hours drying time between coats. Finish with a coat of clear lacquer and hang your guitar body out to dry for thirty days.

This video gives you a taste of what you’ll be doing when you paint your guitar.

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