Man, after a bad experience with the last guitar tech,(who obviously didn't know what the hell he was doing), so this time I thought I'm definitely gonna have to try someone else, and geez it sure is a great feeling to have found somebody who knows there way around a guitar so well and whom I can trust 100 percent.

It was getting to the point where I wasn't sure who to take my guitars to anymore but thankfully I found THE man and his able wife.

Anybody else have any bad experiences with guitar techs?

Luckily no, I've had the same one since I first got my guitar. I got a job at the guitar store so now I'm going to be able to learn a lot from him.

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Wow, you get to work at the guitar store! That would have to be my dream job.

I took my Tele to the tech at a local guitar shop a few months ago and told him I wanted it set up for slide EXCLUSIVELY.

I said I would be keeping it in open D tuning permanently, and I wanted the heaviest strings with the highest action he could put on there.

When I picked it up the action was slightly raised, but not what I asked for, and it was tuned to standard. He said he didn't raise the action too high "in case I wanted to play it normally."



It's so frustrating when you don't get what you ask for.

i feel your pain on this.
maybe he thought he was doing you a favor.
most folks i know have their guitars set up for slide
and for regular play. some folks slide and chord at the same time.
tried it and cant do it lol.

How do you find a good guitar tech?
Don't know any guitarists to ask locally and I guess I could bring it to GC but...
I looked in the Yellow Pages under "luthier" but found only a couple about 35 miles away in the big city (Boston).

-T

35 miles is a small price to pay for a good tech.

http://www.danerlewine.com/guitar_repair_dvds.html

try here. dan is a good guy. i have a neck he built for me some 17 yrs ago. love it still. hes the man when it comes to tech stuff.

Try over a hundred miles to nearest authorized Fender tech! Of course, I'm a Texan and expect nothing less. However, I would think that the self-proclaimed "live music capitol of the world"-Austin, would have one. BTW, Austin is only 40 miles from me, but it sucks s--t through a straw-I'd rather drive!

You guys would not believe the number of requests I get to work on guitars....why? Because of them having BAD experiences with "techs" in guitar shops who don't really give a hoot about their guitars. Either their burned out on doing that kind of work, or somehow lost the passion, or just do not have the experience (but have the attitude that they can do anything). Some of these people are so desperate they are willing to risk sending a guitar 100's of miles to have me work on them rather than trust someone local. That's, ah...bad.

I suggest asking other guitarists where they have their work done. As suggested, look up lutheir in the phone book or Google your area. Or do what I did, learn to do it yourself. It just takes a little practice and after all, today we have google, so you can find all kinds of tips. Even YouTube videos how to do stuff. I started out with two cheap MIM guitars that I bought used—a Strat and a Tele. Took them apart and then did complete set-ups over and over. Experimented with different strings. Then started wiring them with custom pickups. I think I paid $125 for the MIM Strat and maybe $225 for the MIM Tele. I got to learn how to do the work, while I enjoyed playing with the guitars. When I felt confident (this was several years back) I ended up selling the Strat off for more than I paid for it! I still have the Tele....

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Xhefri's Guitars
www.xhefriguitars.com

Evidently, said tech is yet another run of the mill hack.

Where in Jersey was this?

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You dig?

Word of mouth is the absolute best way. If you don't know any local guitarists, you could always ask of the members in various guitar forums which are from your area whom they recommend.

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You dig?

G'day Mate

I have never been unfortunate to have a bad experience with a Guitar Tech but on the other side of saying that, I really never truly understood what type of set up I really preferred until I forced myself to learn how to set up my Guitars, and do my own work.

Mate the best guitar tech will be you

After owning many different Strats and various G-Tars over the years,
I wish I would have bitten the bullet sooner and taught myself how to set them up and repair etc.

Like many out there I have spent so much money paying someone else to do something that I can do too.

I am pretty good at setting up Strats and Tele's, I have saved so much money over the last 5 years.

Having 13 Guitars to practise on helps though ...

A couple of days ago a friend of mine at work was quoted $120 AUD for a full set up on his Ibanez RG Series fitted with Floyd Rose Trem.

I told him to buy strings and I would do it.

Mind you I was nervous because it was my first Floyd Rose Tremolo System I had worked on and To make things more challenging for me,
he wanted it set up for drop C tuning...I was feeling a bit of

Anyway After a bit of a balancing act I conquered the RG Series with the Floyd Rose. He was absolutely impressed and probably surprised...
So was I, I think the practise paid off in the end.

Well sorry for my war and peace, but really Mate, try to force yourself to learn how to set up your own gear now, before you make the mistake I did and paid out money I didn't have to..

Good Luck and Take Care...

I said to you speaka my language He just and gave me a Vegemite Sandwich....
I

I've never had any truly bad experiences with getting work done on my guitars. But I am extremely impatient and hate having to wait for the work to be done so I've tried to learn the basics and do things myself. I also don't mind saving money on labor, because I work very cheap.

I use the setup guide for Strats right on this site. I'm comfortable adjusting action, intonation, truss rod (relief), trem spring tension, pickup height. I'm not afraid to do some soldering to change out electronic parts, it always works despite my somewhat sloppy soldering.

Doing it myself really paid off for me earlier this week when I got a second hand Strat that had a very baffling setup. Had to do a lot of adjusting to it, but I got it just about perfect (for me) after about 3 hours. Had to un-shim the neck, lower the bridge, lower the saddles, adjust the truss, adjust the pickup heights, adjust the intonation. If I brought it to a sub-par tech, he probably would have told me the guitar was shot, and if he knew what he was doing, I'm sure all of those adjustments would not have been cheap.

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I trust my tech with my life. He's reliable, talented, charming, and roguishly good-looking.

He's me!

+1 here too...