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Post subject: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 3:55 pm
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Posts: 1978
Location: Manchester
It's belated spring cleaning time here, I've performed a herculean overhaul of my gear ...

Guitars:

All restrung (six electrics, one acoustic, one bass!), truss rods tweaked to allow for summer humidity changes, couple of neck shims removed, actions set, crackly pots and switches cleaned out with Electrolube. All dusted then cleaned up with the magic Ronsonol lighter fluid and a few drops of linseed oil. Loose tuner bushings and wobbly jack sockets tightened up, one switch replaced and I finally got round to disconnecting all the tone pots.

Amps:

Did a complete top to bottom retube and bias adjustment. Five 12AX7's, two 12AT7's and four EL34's don't come cheap but this thing is singing and growling and shaking the floorboards like never before. The preamp's had a new input socket fitted and a good old squirt of magic contact cleaner into the pots.

Oh, and I ditched my old speaker cables that I made out of lawnmower cable and bought some proper ones at last.

Effects:

The Lexicon was doing odd things, flashing up strange numbers and jumping into edit mode at odd moments. Cover off, push the ribbon connectors back on firmly and she's good as new.

Accessories:

Leads! Filthy, sticky, beer-covered, dusty, crackly leads. All wiped down with surface cleaner, dodgy ones trimmed and re-soldered, others thrown out and replaced. Patchbay pulled to bits and rewired to avoid spaghetti spilling out in all directions then all the inputs labelled properly so I know my FX input from my preamp send in the dark.

Mains leads:

All checked for correct fuse ratings, cleaned up, untangled, plugs opened and wiring checked. Still need to shift the mass of mains wiring into a PDU but that's next on the shopping list. All plugs labelled with sharpie pen so I know what I'm unplugging.

That little lot cost me a fortune in new leads, spray cleaner, tubes and spare parts but the difference is incredible. No crackles and buzzes, the amp sounds great, my guitars play and sound as good as new and I don't feel like I'm in danger of catching foul skin diseases from my leads or getting electrocuted.

Maintain your gear people, an overhaul is as good as an upgrade.

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 5:28 pm
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Wow good job I need to do the same just can't find the time. :D


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:08 pm
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I could probably pitch a good tv show where I go into rehearsal rooms and get musicians to clean their gear up.

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:14 pm
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Now that you are finished with your gear...how about helping with mine.

All three of my basses are now in good shape. I'm too embarrassed to say how poorly maintained my Stratocaster is :oops:

Speaking of maintenance - Thanks Fender site workers for getting things rolling again!


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:18 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:
I could probably pitch a good tv show where I go into rehearsal rooms and get musicians to clean their gear up.

I'd watch


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:46 pm
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I'd watch that, too. especially if the bird helps ;)

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 6:53 pm
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Every time the bird gets mentioned I'm going to post his pic.

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Momo is the best parrot. All others are vastly inferior.

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 7:14 pm
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DaJeepster wrote:
I'm too embarrassed to say how poorly maintained my Stratocaster is


Tell us all the filthy dirty details. And post pics. I may award a prize for the dirtiest guitar.

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 8:31 pm
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I'll take pics of mine tomorrow. the wife is asleep in there right now. I might win this. lol

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 9:11 pm
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I greased the preamp volume pots of my amps.


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:15 pm
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GilgaFrank wrote:

Tell us all the filthy dirty details. And post pics. I may award a prize for the dirtiest guitar.


I don't have any type photo account. Anyway I've started maintenance.

The function is fine...neck, intonation, action and pots are totally useable.

The output jack ferrule is highly discolored with some rust pitting.

Every screw is a dull grey. The chrome neck plate was...err...turning ripe.

A layer of "case fuzz" on the pickguard. Strings looked black (no rust flakes yet)

The volume knob & three pickguard screws still have the original pickguard protection plastic under them.. :roll: How lazy is that! (1990 or so Strat)

Thanks GilgaFrank, haven't publicly humiliated myself in quite a while.


Last edited by DaJeepster on Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:27 pm
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Location: The Capital Wasteland
If the Guild didn't sound better with 3 month old strings, I'd change them.

This guitar is always slightly off in some way, I swear. I #$@*&!% love it.

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1986 Peavey Envoy 110
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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2013 6:54 pm
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Slowly but surely I'm getting my guitars set-up and cleaned with new strings too. I have recently switched my string gauge and brand after 30 years or more with D'Addario .008-.038s I have switched to Reverend Willie's Texas Lottery .007-.038.People say that thin strings have thin tone but that's a lot of Malarkey,Tony Iommi,Brian May,John Lennon,George Harrison,Jimi Hendrix and Billy Giibbons all used super light and extra lite strings and they all had heavy tone,some had monster tone,so people who attribute lite strings to lite tone are blaming the wrong thing.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 9:42 am
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Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:57 am
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My Strat is better now. Chrome polish, wax and oil. New strings too. Left the plastic, I will get some stainless steel screws & replace them all.

In Buxom's camp with my Washburn AB20 acoustic/electric bass. The flat wound strings are over a year old because I like the 'thump' of the bass like this.

.007-.038 strings guitslinger? :shock: :shock:

My solid bodies have 10-46's and the semi-hollow body has .011-.049 and a wound 3rd string.

I'm a bass player so the guitars all feel like skinny strings to me :lol:

My newest axe is a Squire VM Jaguar Bass Special, less than one month old!


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Post subject: Re: Maintenance!
Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 12:39 pm
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Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2011 7:10 pm
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Location: The Capital Wasteland
I use .08-.38 strings.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic


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