The Guitar Player Repair Guide is a very thorough book that really explains in detail the mechanics of guitars; from wiring to action and everything in between.

Even if you’re not mechanically inclined, this book will help you understand your guitar better, and for that matter, will give you the questions you’ll need to ask when you’re looking for a qualified guitar technician to work on your own instruments.

You can find the Guitar Player Repair Guide here on Amazon.com; it is usually about $20.

Guitar Player Repair Guide Reviews

Customer Review on Amazon.com:

Dan Erlewine’s latest edition of the Guitar Player Repair Guide is a worthy update. There are numerous additions and updates anyone familiar with the previous editions should check out. If you are new to the guitar, this book is the maintenance and repair guide than will help you maintain your investment, and even give you great tips on how to hod-rod, customize or fix your guitar.

The book is organized and logically arranged with Basic, DIY and Deep sections in each chapter. Electric, Acoustic and Bass guitars are all covered with detailed narrative and clear pictures.

Even if you are not up to jobs like fret work or truss rod adjustments, this book will prepare you to talk with your friendly neighborhood guitar repair guy about getting your guitar back to its former glory.

Very highly recommended. Make this your first purchase for your guitar dedicated bookshelf (doesn’t everyone have those?).

Customer Review on Amazon.com:

I renovate cheap flee market/garage sale”rescue guitars”And I hotrod guitars for friends+family !Until now,the 2nd edition GPRG has been my bible.The new 3rd edition is amazing + it comes with a DVD.From basic cleaning and set up for do it your selfers ,to advanced repair, this book is a MUST HAVE!!!!!If you want to make a cheap guitar play like a million bucks or simply keep the old (expensive/vintage)work horse working BUY THIS BOOK!!!!! It will save you more $$ than the books cover price + your guitar will thank you …

Customer Review on Amazon.com:

This is an excellent book. It covers basic to advanced information on a repair as well as great explanations on how to do the repair. I have repaired guitars for years, but had gone away from it for a while. This was a great refresher on some measurements and fine points I had forgotten the specifics of.

You can find The Guitar Player Repair Guide on Amazon, it is usually about $20.

You see, your fingers have all sorts of interesting chemicals in them. Sweat, dirt and who knows what else quickly finds it’s way into your guitar’s pores during a jam session.

Depending on your body’s ph level, your sweat can actually be extremely harmful for the finish on your guitar, not to mention the strings!

So, in order to prevent undue wear and tear, simply keep a clean, soft cloth in your guitar case at all times, and make sure you wipe the guitar down each time you play it.

Make sure you get the body, the headstock, the neck, around the pickups, and then fold the cloth and slide it up underneath the strings (start down near the bridge where you have more clearance). You can slide the cloth all the way up the fretboard in this fashion, which will really help to clean the dirt and sweat off your strings and fretboard, extending the life of your guitar.

Oh – and the easiest of all… did I mention to wash your hands before you play? Always, always, always…

For more tips on guitar care and maintenance, make sure you sign up below for my guitar care newsletter. Right after you signup, I’ll send you a free video with guitar care tips.

I’ve seen people drop their guitars (conventional strap slips off, or they’re just being careless) and it ain’t pretty.

The short video below will show you how you can install guitar strap locks on your guitar with a minimum of fuss.

If you’re looking for a place to buy some guitar strap locks, your local guitar store most likely has them, though you might get a better price online, at Amazon.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4QWKSKnaaM

Video Problems? Watch Installing Guitar Strap Locks on YouTube

For more tips on guitar care and maintenance, make sure you sign up below for my guitar care newsletter. Right after you signup, I’ll send you a free video with guitar care tips.

Changing your guitar strings is easy to do, and doesn’t take long. Additionally, it’s a pretty cheap upgrade in the grand scheme of things.

You can get guitar strings for as low as $3 a pack, if you hunt around. A cool tip is that there are very few string winding machines in the world, and those few machines make all of the brands you see in the store.

So often the house brands are made on the same machines as the leading brands… if you can’t read between the lines, then I’ll just tell you outright that you can easily get by with the cheaper strings if saving the extra couple bucks will help you make the decision to change your strings more often.

Professional guitar players will have new strings put on their guitar before every show – that is how much of a difference having new strings will make to your playing!

For more tips on guitar care and maintenance, make sure you sign up below for my guitar care newsletter. Right after you signup, I’ll send you a free video with guitar care tips.

If the intonation is out, you’re playing out of tune – guaranteed. Even if you just tuned it (to the open strings) and it looked good.

If you want to check the intonation on your guitar, it is actually pretty easy. Simply use a digital guitar tuner to first tune your guitar as you normally would, plucking each of the strings in the open position.

Now, try using your tuner at different points on the fretboard. Try plucking each of the strings at the 5th fret, or the 10th fret, or at the 12th fret where the octave is. Is each note still in tune?

If so, then your guitar’s intonation is correct.

However, if you start seeing some variances then you need to get the intonation fixed.

If you’d like to learn how to correct your guitar’s intonation, it isn’t that hard, and Greg Voros has done an excellent course on guitar setup that covers this.

For more tips on guitar care and maintenance, make sure you sign up below for my guitar care newsletter. Right after you signup, I’ll send you a free video with guitar care tips.

Nearly all guitars are made out of wood, and as such, they are subject to things like changes in temperature and moisture. Have you ever come across a door that doesn’t fit quite right into the door frame in either winter or summer? It’s the same principle at work here.

So bear in mind that whenever you bring your guitar into a different environment, whether that is hot or cold, that environment is affecting your guitar. It can cause the materials to expand or contract, and if the variations are extreme enough and often enough, this can actually cause cracking in the finish of your guitar, or warping of the wood.

Humidity as well plays a role – if you’re in a damp environment this affects wood quite a lot. The extra moisture can cause your strings to corrode more quickly, and it can also play havoc with electrical components such as pickups or your wiring.

So what can we do about this? Obviously our guitars get moved around to some degree, perhaps going from your house to someone else’s, or to a gig venue.

Well, make sure you never store your guitars outside, for one thing. Don’t leave them in the car for hours on end while you’re inside. The temperature can be quite extreme inside the car, especially on hot summer days. Ever cracked a CD by leaving it on the dash in the sun? You don’t want that to happen to your guitar…

For more tips on guitar care and maintenance, make sure you sign up below for my guitar care newsletter. Right after you signup, I’ll send you a free video with guitar care tips.