Hi everyone. Happy New Year.

I have an '08 MIA Standard Strat (3-tone sunburst, maple neck) that I love. I brought it brand new in September, 2008, and I've never had it set up. It plays very nicely (at least in my amateur-ish hands) but I'm pretty sure it could play better with a professional setup. I have a concern and a question:

My concern is that the only other time I've ever taken a guitar in for a setup (an acoustic) was to a well-respected local place that unfortunately dinged up the guitar. It was my first year or two playing and frankly while the guitar played pretty good after the setup (even with the new cosmetic flaws on it) I didn't notice a super huge increase in playability. Maybe because I was so new to playing? Since then I've been very hesitant to get a setup done on the two guitars I own now (my Strat and my Taylor acoustic), which are both much more expensive than the one I had done (and that got dinged) several years ago.

So I guess my question is whether a setup is REALLY worth it. Like you guys I'm sure, I take VERY good care of my guitars and can't stand the thought of having someone do any damage (cosmetic or otherwise) to them. Am I being unreasonably cautious/paranoid to the point of not getting my Strat playing as well as it could?

Please help alleviate my fears.

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2008 MIA Standard Strat 3-tone Sunburst
2007 Taylor 310 Acoustic
Fender Blues Junior NOS Amp
Digitech Bad Monkey OD pedal

Fender usually has a pertty good set up done right out of the door. But, for optimal performance, GET IT SET UP! If you take it to someone who actually knows what they're doing, and has a great work ethic, you should have no worries of cosmetic or mechanical damage. Another great thing about getting it set up, is you can advise this tech how you'd want it to feel, ergo, they'll set it to your tastes. Do some research on these guys and get it done!

No, you are not being unreasonably cautious/paranoid as you have legitimate points of concern.

Unfortunately, there are WAY too many hacks out there touting themselves as 'professionals'. As your experience has proven, many don't even take care of the instruments in their possession where the quality of their 'work' is an entirely different issue.

I'm sure you've read here, there and everywhere, many tout the advantages of setting up one's own guitar(s) and the relative ease there is to it. I do not buy into this 'ease' thing as a whole. The truth of the matter is, some can, some can't (although they are personally satisfied) and then there's everything in between where 'success' is relative in terms of what would be considered a professional level. On the other hand, there are many others out there who prefer to have a COMPETENT professional set their guitar(s) up where the rewards are truly worth it. The key to finding out who is truly COMPETENT is not by 'hype' or a facility's ambience. Rather, it is totally by word of mouth. And let's face it, the younger the (alleged) tech, the less experienced (s)he is.

As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.

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You dig?

We're smack in the middle of the information age. I was born the same year as the Stratocaster, and I can remember, not so long ago, when getting information on how to set up a guitar was tough or impossible. Now, there's plenty of info for free on the internet. It really isn't so much a matter of why you should decide to set up your own guitar, it's more like, why would you decide not to.

Not sayin' you can do everything. Leveling frets requires some gear and additional expertise, and you can screw things up. But setting the truss rod? I tweak mine a little bit now and then through the year to account for changes in the humidity. It is NOT a difficult adjustment.

There's a ton of info on setting up the bridge. Much of it's bogus, but read, take your's apart, and if this ingenious but simple machine doesn't make sense to you.....yikes.

And set your intonation. You might not get it right the first time, but you will get it soon enough.

I agree, I don't like to take my guitar to a tech. I can tell you stories about that. I'll only take it to a tech when I absolutely have to.

Don't forget, there are really good Strat setup books available at the library for FREE. Lots of pictures. Just do it.

I have the same concerns too..i would like to take my takamine to have it set up but, i fear that it will come back with dings or stuff..Like you, i take very good care of my guitars and,the ones i bought brand new 2 years ago still have no dings or scratches or anything like that. (meaning, my ash strat, my epiphone dot and, the takamine) i bought the takamine at Gc and, week later i took it in to have truss rod adjusted cos it buzzed at 1st fret. it came back working but, the d and g strings were damaged above the soundhole from where the guys allen wrench rubbed against them. had to change out the strings.

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2009 american deluxe ash stratocaster

2009 epiphone es-335 dot.
2009 65 drri amp
2009 fender vibro champ-xD amp.
2009 takamine g-4400 acoustic/electric guitar

1980 fender harvard reverb 1 amp

raf66...I noticed u r n Columbus, if u dont mind the drive there's guy in Dayton who has set up my strats and I came away very satisfied. His name is Bob Patrick his Direct Cell: 937-545-6234 he works out of Play it again Music: 937-252-8008. My strats played o.k. but once this guy set-up my JBstrat I was hooked and took my other strats to have him set those also...give him a call

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Onelove&peace2allyourendeavors/G.

Thanks guys for the support and advice. It may just be that I could find the right resources and do at least some of the stuff on my own after some research. I know how to change the strings, adjust the truss rod, adjust the action, adjust the pickup heights and check the intonation. What I don't know how to do is level the frets, file/adjust the nut slots to make sure there's no binding that would affect tuning, or adjust the bridge/tremolo system (for instance, I've never adjusted the screws, springs and such).

I guess simplistic work on the nut wouldn't be a problem (using the old strings to slide back and forth in each slot, putting some petroleum jelly in the slots and string tree), and I'm wondering if I would even need to worry about leveling the frets and/or adjusting the bridge/tremolo system.

Glenn A, I appreciate the referral for the guy in Dayton but that's a bit of a drive (an hour or so) for a setup. I may just spend some time trying to learn to do it myself. By the way, I'm thinking about putting on some 10s in place of my usual 9s. Would doing so necessarily require more of a professional setup than one could do at home?

Thanks again for the guidance.

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2008 MIA Standard Strat 3-tone Sunburst
2007 Taylor 310 Acoustic
Fender Blues Junior NOS Amp
Digitech Bad Monkey OD pedal

Sounds like you have all the skills to change strings gauge. Tweak the truss rod, adjust the intonation, and you're home free.

I responded to a post recently explaining to a guy how I go about making sure there's no binding at the nut, so I won't go into it here in case you already saw it. No foolin' on the petroleum jelly. Lifetime supply is about a buck. Works great. I'm also a huge fan of using mineral oil to clean my strings. I even put it on them when they're brand new, cuz it makes them feel great and the stay cleaner because not much will stick to them. Better living through petroleum products.

While that would be conventional wisdom, as many of us know,"experience" doesn't always correlate to "giving a damn", and older guys can be hacks too. My brother took his beloved vintage J Bass to a guy in the Phoenix, AZ area to fix the truss rod and then do a general fret dress/setup. He had asked around, and this guy seemed to be well-respected and had supposedly done work for Joe Perry or whatever other famous artists blah blah blah when they were in the area. Months later, after he was sure the guy had sold the bass for meth or something, and many many unreturned phone calls, he finally tracked the guy down, and just demanded the bass back. It took the guy a week to find it in his shop, and when my brother got it back, the truss rod was still screwed up, and the guy had filed a groove in the neck bindings to replace the nut, a real bush-league hack job from someone who supposedly knew what he was doing. It was one of those situations where there was really nothing my brother could legally do, since the guy had "lost" all the records of the bass ever coming in his shop, and at that point he was just so happy to see the bass back in one piece he didn't really care.

That said, I definitely have tons of respect for those who are real masters of guitar setup, and once in awhile it's worth it to just Pay The Man and have the job done right. But I'm also a huge DIY guy, and to me there's value in learning basic setup and repair skills. I know how I like my guitars to play, and I'm confident in my ability to keep my Strats set up the way I like it. Sometimes you have to just jump in over your head to learn, but it's worth it. Basic neck relief adjustments/action height/intonation is something anyone can do.