Guitar Tricks of the Trade
Here's a few helpful hints I've picked up over the years
that many guitarists may find interesting. These should help your
guitar play better and generally behave itself.
Guitar Tip #1) If you have a bolt on neck guitar and the neck does not fit
tightly into the guitar body - try this.
Guitar repair - Cut a small piece of bug screen from an old screen door to fit the
dimensions of the neck pocket on the body of the guitar. Then place
it in the pocket and re-install the guitar neck. The bug screen will cut
into both the neck and the guitar body and help keep the neck in one fixed
position. An alternative to bug screen would be a piece of medium
coarse sandpaper folded in half. Be aware that this will require
re-adjusting your guitar string height!
Guitar Tip #2) If you have a Fender style bridge on your guitar and the height adjustment
screws are rusted or stripped and will not move, here’s what you
can do.
Remove the problem bridge piece from the guitar and flip it over. Find the
smallest razor saw you can (or a very fine nut slotting file).
Carefully file a slot in the bottom of the screw deep enough to fit a
small slotted screwdriver. This will then allow you to remove the
screw. Now replace it with a new one, or re-install your old screw
upside down and use a screwdriver for future adjustments instead of
the old Allen key!
Guitar Tip #3) Those of you who have a bone or plastic nut and find that due
to string bending your guitar strings are snagging and going sharp, this can
be fixed quite easily.
Lift the guitar string out of the nut and with your
fingernail trace the string path back and forth in the nut slot. You
should be able to feel a burr or rough spot. Take a small piece of
very fine sandpaper (400-600 grit) and fold it in half. Now lightly
run the sandpaper back and forth in the nut slot to remove the burr
then place a tiny drop of light machine oil in the slot and replace
the guitar string. If you do not have any oil you could use pencil lead
(graphite). I used to keep a bowling pencil in my guitar case for
quick emergencies!
Guitar Tip #4) On acoustic guitars when the string holes in the bridge are
badly worn it becomes very difficult for the bridge pin to properly
hold the guitar string without popping out.
A quick fix is to remove the
ball end from an old guitar string and slide it over the new string all the
way down to the end. With the extra ball end there, the string can
sit tighter under the bridge plate and allow the pin to hold the
guitar string securely in place!
Click here for more Guitar Talk columns.
Greigg Fraser is a guitarist / songwriter
from London Canada. Click below to visit his web site and listen to audio samples from his two CD's!
http://www.clevernet.net/curlymaple/
