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I do my own setups after Ancient showed me how. Still not perfect at it, but getting better

so for those of us who do setup ourselves
but completely blow at it
whats a good place to learn
ive watched a bunch of youtubes
but i tune whole step down as well
and i gots some buzz
i think i filed my nut too much
i was gonna send it out to some dude
but $80 plus shipping a guitar both ways
its gona be more than i paid for the thing

i got a book a long time ago at elderly instruments in lansing mi for doing guitar setups step by step

it's really not that complex. the most complicated thing is knowing your guitar and how you go about setting up that specific git.

so because of this thread we now know that 100% of ILF posters do their own setups. that is awesome.

I never do. Too lazy. I just play my guitar until its physically impossible to do so anymore. Then I she'll out 50 bucks for a set up.

I enjoy doing it. Kinda a zen thing I can zone out while doing.
I can't imagine paying someone else to do it.
Adjust truss rod, rough intonate, string height, fine intonate, done.
Some guits want to be a pain with fret buzz, those I'll go more in depth and fret level and crown but mostly I don't have to do that.

i would love to be able to do fretwork, id hvae these sg frets down to nothin

its not hard, magic marker is your friend

i had to learn to do my own setups in the days when i owned eight electric guitars and five acoustics...it'd have cost me so much to have them tweaked for the seasonal changes twice a year that i could live for a month off the total. i only go so far, though...i do my own mechanical setup and add bone saddles to all my acoustics, but i don't mess with new nuts (TWSS) or fretwork (unless the old frets are so fucked that i essentially can't make them any worse).

i'd love to have someone more skilled than me work on the guitars, but it's just not in my budget. i also value the experience i gained from working on the guitars myself, especially building the Strat/Tele pair where i had to set up everything from scratch.

Ancient Astronaught wrote:Everytime I've had a setup done at a shop it came back completely unlike what I wanted.

+1,000,001

benjuro wrote:

Ancient Astronaught wrote:Everytime I've had a setup done at a shop it came back completely unlike what I wanted.

+1,000,001

but its at factory spec! I didn't want it at factory spec i wanted it setup like i told you!

Hence why I learned to do it myself.

i do my own setups/electronics - i wish i felt comfortable doing fret leveling....i think if i shelled out the $$ for the tools i'd do it, but still haven't bit the bullet TO buy it...

I couldn't do my own setups for years and it's hard to believe I took so long to figure it out. My primary fear was truss rod adjustment along with getting the guitar so out of whack that I'd have to pay someone to fix it in the end regardless. Like the OP mentioned tho, you can't expect somebody else to set your guitar up exactly how you want it, just too many variables in playing styles/techniques/preferred feel. Such a personal thing and it sucks to pay $50 just to get your guitar close. Also sucked trying to experiment with new tunings or string gauge knowing a setup would be required. Also, if you have three or four guitars and a bass, that shit adds up fast!

My girl surprised me with Dan Erlewine's book years ago at Xmas and I decided to dive right in. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn, great source of knowledge with tons maintenance and repair tips plus pics to help newbies along. My local luthier was also super helpful in helping me learn even tho it resulted in him losing most of my business. He still handles the big stuff tho so it's all good.

I really enjoy doing setups to boot, have a lot of fun and it's such a gratifying feeling when you're done and the guitar feels/plays perfectly. I've been pretty lucky tho as my guitars all setup very easily and are super stable once setup. I rarely have to make any adjustments, only minor tweaks here and there as the seasons change.

That's good cuz I still don't have the nerve or skill to do any fret leveling or much beyond setup and hardware replacement/swaps. I wanna learn to work on electronics next, then go from there, master it all one of these days....

I'm doing much of it... but I go to a luthier for intonation and trussrod adjustement.
It's been 10 years that I have the same guitar and it went to a luthier only two times.
The trussrod is hard to adjust on those PRS (double action or something), so I prefer not to mess with it.

Holy Schnikes wrote:
I really enjoy doing setups to boot, have a lot of fun and it's such a gratifying feeling when you're done and the guitar feels/plays perfectly. I've been pretty lucky tho as my guitars all setup very easily and are super stable once setup. I rarely have to make any adjustments, only minor tweaks here and there as the seasons change.

So this! When you get it to your personal perfect, they rarely need messing with at all.

Holy Schnikes wrote: That's good cuz I still don't have the nerve or skill to do any fret leveling or much beyond setup and hardware replacement/swaps. I wanna learn to work on electronics next, then go from there, master it all one of these days....

Dude, I was petrified the first time I did it. I started with a $50 starcaster that I knew was screwed up. Now I am at the point with it where I felt totally confident fixing up my first guitar, an 87 usa strat plus. I had worn the frets down to unplayable. Now it has a new life and actually gets used again.

AxAxSxS wrote:

Holy Schnikes wrote:
I really enjoy doing setups to boot, have a lot of fun and it's such a gratifying feeling when you're done and the guitar feels/plays perfectly. I've been pretty lucky tho as my guitars all setup very easily and are super stable once setup. I rarely have to make any adjustments, only minor tweaks here and there as the seasons change.

So this! When you get it to your personal perfect, they rarely need messing with at all.

Exactly. It's like you find each guitar's sweet spot, tweak until it's perfect for you, and it actually prefers to stay as is.

AxAxSxS wrote:

Holy Schnikes wrote: That's good cuz I still don't have the nerve or skill to do any fret leveling or much beyond setup and hardware replacement/swaps. I wanna learn to work on electronics next, then go from there, master it all one of these days....

Dude, I was petrified the first time I did it. I started with a $50 starcaster that I knew was screwed up. Now I am at the point with it where I felt totally confident fixing up my first guitar, an 87 usa strat plus. I had worn the frets down to unplayable. Now it has a new life and actually gets used again.

That's awesome, bringing a guitar back to life like that, well done!

I need to do it myself when the time comes. That's the only way to truly learn those skills, get in there and get the ol' hands dirty. I can read and look at pics and watch youtube vids all day but there's nothing like learning through experience and feel.

I think the most important thing is first knowing exactly what you want out of your guitar, then proceeding slowly with small adjustments. Had to learn to be patient and wait a couple days for the truss rod adjustment to settle, things like that. Really easy to overdo the guitar adjustments. Having a cheapo guitar around is great too! If you can set one of those up to play well, you'll have no issues with a well built guitar.