I was one of those kids who liked to take stuff apart. I got my first electric guitar around 1982, and the first thing I did was to learn how it worked. So I’ve been working on guitars since 1982. And in my opinion, I think that every guitar player should learn how to do their own guitar work.
I don’t mean everyone should learn how to refret a guitar. I mean everyone should learn how to restring a guitar and do a basic setup, and then if they want to learn more, they can keep going.
If you have fun working on your guitar, there’s always a level above what you can currently do. In that sense, it’s just like playing. Let’s get to the list. These reasons are in no particular order, but the best reason might be the last one.
- Easy Entry. You can learn how to restring your guitar in 15 minutes. Action and Intonation aren’t too complicated. I have a couple of videos on my channel on action and intonation, which I will link in the video description.
- Save Money. Guitar Center will charge you money to put on a new set of guitar strings, but anyone can do it. Same with a basic setup. Same with everything.
- Customize your Guitar to Your Preferences. No one knows your guitar playing preferences better than you do. Action is super specific to the player. I like low action, but not so low that the low E string buzzes too much if I hit it. You can try to explain what you like to someone else, or you can just do it yourself.
- Minimize Downtime. If you have to take your guitar somewhere and leave it there, you’re going to be without it. If you do your own work, you can minimize downtime and you can be in control of when repairs happen.
- Guitar Fallback Plan. If you have windows of time where you just don’t feel like playing, and you’re looking at your gear and feeling bad that you don’t feel like using it, shifting gears and working on guitars can be a nice distraction. Yes, i really do think this way.
- Learning is Fun. When you learn new things, it can improve your confidence and keep your brain occupied. The better you get at working on guitars, the more there is to learn. It’s always fun to learn a new hobby, if you like the hobby.
- Encourages Guitar Collecting. This sounds sarcastic, but it isn’t. Once you know how to fix guitars, you’re more likely to build a collection, and collecting can be very fun. And you can get some real steals once you know how to fix guitars. People sell guitars because of things like sharp fret ends, and that’s a 10 minute fix. It’s a thrill to find something dirt cheap and fix it up and increase its value.
- Helps Maintain Collection. Once you have a collection, you can really put those guitar repair skills to use, maintaining your collection. You can sell guitars whenever you want, and it’ll be easier because your guitars will play great. And paying someone 20 times a year to set up each of your 20 guitars would cost a ton of cash.
- Collecting Tools is Fun. If you like to collect things, guitar repair tools are mostly inexpensive compared to pedals. I paid $120 for a fret crowning file, and that was one of my most expensive purchases. $120 would be fairly inexpensive in the new pedal realm. And I’ve paid as little as $5 for a tool. I’m really into guitar tools. Sometime soon I’m going to do a video on guitar tools and which ones to buy generic.
- Earn Money. A lot of people got into fixing guitars as a fun hobby and ended up doing it part time or full time. I have worked on other people’s guitars for money. There are pros and cons, but if a hobby can pay for itself or even earn you extra money, I call that a win/win. And you don’t need to be able to do complete refrets to earn money – being able to restring a guitar and adjust the action and intonation is enough to charge people.
So there you go. That was 10 reasons you should do your own guitar work. How far you go is totally up to you, but the more you learn, the less you have to pay someone else. And a lot of guitar builders got started doing guitar repairs first.
