Maintenance Tips

This week we are going to talk about a very important part of playing the guitar that often goes overlooked, guitar maintenance. There are few simple steps you can take on a regular basis that will help you extend the life of your instrument significantly. All it takes is a few minutes every month or so to keep your axe in top shape.

The easiest time to do your maintenance work is when you change your strings. When you have the old ones off, you can do a couple things to keep the fretboard and neck playing smoothly.

First take a soft lint-free cloth and wipe down the fretboard carefully. Be sure to get all the grime out that tends to accumulate around the base of the frets. Then if you have a rosewood fretboard, you can even softly rub in some linseed oil to keep it really slick.

Another thing that needs to be done while the strings are off is tightening the truss rod. If you remember from our anatomy lesson, the truss rod is the bar that runs along the length of the neck to adjust its curve. As nature takes its course, a guitar’s neck will bend, causing the action to become higher and the intonation to be wrong. You can correct this problem, though, by regularly tightening the truss rod. It is usually accessible through a plate on the headstock of the guitar that is attached with a few screws. When you lift off the plate, you will usually need an Allen wrench to actually turn the truss rod. Give it a few twists clockwise, just enough to feel a little tension. This will help you out a lot in the long run.

Any other adjustments that you might want to make to the bridge or nut must be made while the strings are off. If you have an acoustic guitar, these things shouldn’t be as much of a problem, but if you have an electric guitar, it will need to be tweaked occasionally. The height of the strings must be maintained, and the length from the nut to the saddles needs to be correct in order for the intonation to be correct.

Another thing you want to check while the strings are off are the tuning pegs. Give them all a couple of turns to make sure they are turning properly and not slipping gears or grinding in any way. Sometimes a small shot of oil into the gears will help ease up that pesky tuner.

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