10 Guitar Hacks You NEED To Know

all right so I'm down here back at dojo guitarra pair with my good friend Dave Onorato yo and today we're gonna show you 10 different guitar hacks that you can do with little to no money to make your guitar sound better play better feel better all that stuff yes easy stuff that anybody can do that you know is I consider essential things that help the guitar you know stay in tune play better all that stuff all right let's get started all right so what's uh okay so basically first hack that's a really easy one to do take the strings off your guitar tighten your gears up if you use your guitar quite a bit I would say oh you know six months to a year take the strings off get yourself a socket set that matches your your gear if your gears are this type gear which is like a shower type gear or Grover gear they have this washer and bolt that comes off and you can see it's mounted you know from the back also with a screw but this is the front way that they they mount them so what happens is over a long period of time these loosen up and the actual gear if it doesn't have a screw on the back the whole gear will start to move so that's not good tuning issues yes yes so just get a socket you know be careful with the guitar and just tighten it down don't over tighten it but tighten it to where it's nice and snug and doesn't move at all that one will save a lot of hassle other one is also tightening the screws on your handles here you don't want to over time to where they're too stiff but you want to get them to where they're nice kind of half snug sometimes there's a washer that's actually in the gear between the gear and the handle here and that wears out and you need sometimes you need to replace those the way you'll know if it's worn out is if you tighten it and it still feels loose it means that the washer shot so you can just take those off figure out what brand you have and get replacements for it awesome all right so for pack number two we're gonna teach you how to properly string your guitar okay so what I like to do on a shallow style gear or Grover style gear where it's not a fender style where you push down in and wrap it this actually goes through like on the side what I like to do is push make sure that the hole is going this way take your string and get it to where it's make sure you got all the way pulled into the bridge here to get a little bit of laying but you don't want a whole lot I try to go for less wraps because with this technique I'm going to show you I'm actually gonna lock this string so you you know once you lock it it's not gonna move from where I lock it we want to do is just run it through here like this going back like you normally would here then go under the string now be careful do not hit the string against the front of your head stock so you scratch it what I'm gonna do is I'm just making a loop like this pulling it tight and then I'm gonna make a lock and what the lock is gonna do is go over it like this pull back around and then you simply do this I usually like to have like two wraps in the lock and then what you do is just push it down and you can see where it's locked and it's not going to go anywhere and it's it's an overhead overhang kind of locked to it whereas these aren't and these are gonna slip ultimately these I mean you'll have to stretch them a lot more than you will this once you lock this and pull it tight and lock against that it's not going anywhere so that's a real simple hack to do it might take you a few times to get a hang of it so buy some cheap strings and you know don't go buy a set of you know super high-dollar strings and do it right off the bat but it works for acoustic or electric for a non-locking gear is the best way I think to do it restring all right next hack is for your frets and your fingerboard just take some triple o or four o stillwall and literally you can just just clean the entire finger board and the fret at the same time you don't have to necessarily use one of those protectors I do but when you're just cleaning and getting the grime and all the oils and the dirt off you can just do this and I would suggest covering up your pickups what you've what you don't want to do is let your guitar get to the point where your your frets are starting to look like that because on nickel 1 they fit you get and get a bunch of drag and if you bend the strings a lot you're gonna feel it it's gonna feel really like you're gonna be rough it won't be nice and smooth I probably need to do this all my guitars because most of them look like that yeah ok well and then what I would do too is you get yourself like a pic of some kind or you can make one of these or you can even use a safety pin what I like to do is just go in the crack right here and get all this dirt you can see all that dirt come up there yeah all that crap right there that was just on that one fret just go lightly you don't have to go heavy because you don't want to scratch your fingerboard just go lightly now if you have a maple neck let's finish I don't suggest this with a maple fingerboard or any kind of finished fingerboard you want to use these protectors and you're gonna want to put some tape over it too but you're gonna want to do that so you don't hurt the finish I put tape on mine so in case I get a little zealous or something I'm not going to scratch the finish and then what we do is take a little lemon oil you can take there's a whole bunch of different brands of this but it's just it's normal lemon oil and getting any fun hardware store furniture place and just use a little bit on rag now whatever you do if you use lemon oil you gotta have a specific rack for lemon oil you can't use your guitar polish rag in your case and do mo because you're gonna get it all over the finish and that's what you don't want this is strictly just to do the fingerboard but and you want to get it nice soaking in the grain there so go against the grain get it down in there and what I like to do is have it pull up like this and I let it sit and if the board's really dry it will soak all of that up you're going to want to probably do another application of it if it dries out it means it's really dry and it's thirsty and it needs oil so I'm realizing I need to haven't done that in years okay so for the next hack piggybacking off of the fretboard polishing we're going to show you how to completely clean up your guitars finish and really this video was just deployed to bring my strat down here so they set it up and clean it up for me but oh great thanks polish that I've used for years McGuire's number two so the number two and the number seven this is like your cut which was gonna cut all the dirt and grime and this is gonna be your final polish that really gets it to debuff out you can use this on metal too it's not just you know for for finishes it will work for for Chrome I wouldn't suggest it on gold because they'll take the gold off yeah but as you can see my strat here yes you got a lot of road grime on these look at all the crap you got in there Wow Wow gonna first shame dude listen these guitars should be played horizont concerns so basically we're gonna get all these pic art scratches out so yeah just ply it right on it I get a nice dry cotton cloth man you've been playing the crap out of you what kind of pic are you using are using a metal pic no okay no no it looks like well it's funny because you've actually worn the the edge of the never really yeah it's actually you can see it's actually worn down from this way it's actually shaped differently obviously we got all the finite scratches out those big heavy ones if I really sat here for a good while I could get all those out too but you can see how much other you can see how much it's it's gotten rid of a lot of the smalls like I said that'll work on plastic nitro polyurethane enamel most any finish alright next sec basically we're gonna do is you got a dirty pot and it's all scratchy and you got some dragon and you can hear it oh yeah so it needs to be and I do this I do this with pots that need to be sprayed up because they're dirty and not working and also do it with new pots that are stiff and really hard to turn these a grease inside of these pots something depending on the quality of the pot if you spray the ox it or another type cleaner into it you can get them to feel really smooth and you'll you'll hear you won't be as loud - yeah and what you want to do is basically open your guitar up or take the pick guard off and be careful not to break any wires and really what you want to do you see how there's a slot in the top of these these pots yeah what you want to do is take the deoxy and just get in that crevice and not go crazy with it but just hit it like that and don't worry about the excess because it'll actually just vaporize there keep the pot like flush like this on top and then flip it upside down because the stuff will move around in the pot and it kind of mixes with the grease and like already this pot is weight faster than their lives and you can do this with your switches to your 5 way switch 3-way switch you want to get any contact points that your metal and metal is contact or has a contact so this will be available in the link yeah the Ox it in the description below it will be an affiliate link you can use you can use that for guitars amps paddles everything yeah so it's great stuff in fact I have some pre amps at home that have some really scratchy pots though yeah it that's a must-have on the road I don't go out on the road without having a cannabis without a doubt alright so the next hack is for you strat players or fender style tremolo bridge players out there who are having trouble breaking strings at the bridge big big problems with strap bridges typically that I see the brake angle where the string goes over the saddle right there and also right there typically they brake right there if you got a burr here on the saddle it'll catch and it'll cut the string it also cut the string right when it goes over the saddle there another trick that I learned years ago from Cesar Diaz who was a good friend of my dads and me he would take shrink tubing and he would actually put this over the string and have it come through the bridge all the way up to where that brake angle is so that the tubing would actually cover the string and it wouldn't dig into the saddle as much and he did this tall Stevie Ray Vaughn strats on the road and it helps TV a lot especially even though he had heavy strings he was still breaking strings like crazy because of that break angle and the other thing you can do too and I wouldn't suggest you guys doing this but you could get your local competent luthier to do is on the bridge plate of a strap where it breaks the brake angle is on the plate underneath this you can take a dremel tool and actually get rid of the sharp edge that like the bridge plates here strings coming out here well there's a brake angle if you take a drum and cleanup that hard edge that's another pinpoint area that you can get rid of for string breakage and fatigue string fatigue your pre-cut I guess you're not actually you're not heat shrinking it down no no no you're just literally slipping it over the string pulling the string through putting it through there and just getting it on the points where it's it's cutting and doing the brake angle gotcha now you don't want it to go over the saddle like that you want to be behind the saddle to where it's like there seems you just cut them to length yeah but then you just cut six of them yeah the same length exactly yeah exactly all right so this next hack is something that's really common a lot of you probably already do it but it's worth putting in the video because I didn't know about this for years and it could have saved me a lot of issues so Dave yes okay so what another problem area that I was running across on guitars is the nut and what I like to use to keep the nut lubricated if you don't have like a graphite nut or a tusk nut if you got a bone or just a plastic net what I like to do is first of all you want to open these slots so where the string isn't catching on either ends or either side of the string so you want to open the top up and then you want to take pencil lead and just put it right down in the slot and sometimes what I like to do is take it laid and just scrape a bunch of graphite off the pencil into a look a little little pan and I mix it with oil just a normal three in one oil so it's like a it's like graphite and all together then I put it down in the slot and what I like to do is run the string in there a few times get it really lubricated up go back clean the excess off and then reapply it one more time and let it soak in there and that works really good and just do that every string change and it works really well you can also use gun oil the stuff that you can clean a gun with works really well for lubricating a knife on guitar if you got a lot of dirt and jump down in the nut take a little 600 sandpaper just hold it and cut it in half go back through the slot like this and just clean all the junk out of it and get it clean and then you can apply your graphite and your oil all right so this next hack is for removing the knobs on your guitars I have screwed this up so many times and broken knobs or broken the shank on my pots doing this I see this I see hundreds of these a year okay so you want to change your knobs make them look cool you want to like spray your pots out or like in this case what we're doing there's actually film plastic film from the pit guard still under these knobs and we want to get rid of that so this is a cool little tool that you can get from Stu Mac it's like literally five six bucks and it's one of the greatest inventions ever and I highly suggest every guitar player buy one of these what this is is a knob puller and it's really easy to do this you just take this thing you slide this two ends under the knob then you push this little ring down get a good grip of it and just lightly pull on the knob it comes right off without screwing your knob up or screwing the pic right up and you can see all this plastic we got to get rid of here man that's originally we shouldn't you know I see so many guys come in guitars that have and girls with pots that they've tried to get the knob off and they've taken a flathead screwdriver or something in one dug right into the pit guard and made big old gashes in the pit guard then they also get up under there and sometimes you can either break the post on the split chef because the knob doesn't want to come off so it breaks or if you pull hard enough on one of these knobs on one of these pots you can actually pull this shaft right out of the pot so to avoid that get one of these these are amazing little tools and they're great and they go right on and it doesn't matter whether it's Gibson fender any knob it's it works great look at that and these will save not only your hands but a lot of money in in changing pots out and busted knobs real cheap little hack that you can do if you got a loose simple Jack or Tim project that keeps loosening up on you simply get a lock washer put the lock washer on the inside of the input Jack mount it to wherever you're gonna mount and then put your washer over the top and then your nut and what the lock washer is gonna do is gonna make that nut spin and once you lock it down if you do it right real nice and tight it's not gonna go anywhere yeah now it actually works for amps too I have had that happen to me on a gig where I went to plug my cable into my amp and the input jack literally came unthreaded and fell inside the chassis of the half and you want to talk about a what am I gonna do moment when you have no input jack into your amp that was uh so I went through and replace them with with lock washers after that yeah alright last sack so what I get a lot of people in my shop about is they have guitars that they have had in storage a long time and by a long time I mean maybe over six months there's a few ways to store guitar and it's real easy and it doesn't take much and you can really save the guitar if you do these small steps if you're not going to play if you like you got an acoustic guitar keep it in a central closet that isn't too hot isn't too cold doesn't have drastic temperature changes if you know you're gonna have the guitar stored well I would say over six months slack the strings I would say at least one or two pitches down so there's less tension on the bridge and on the neck it's less susceptible to the neck warping and the breech pulling on your guitar or cracking the top from from 10 too much tension I would also suggest getting a humidifier or dehumidifier little pouch that d'addario mix that they make a good one and you just simply put it in your case it keeps it nice and regulated for acoustic guitars from electrics pretty much the same kind of applies and I learned the hard way another one that if you have a nitro painted guitar and it's perfectly wonderfully brand-new do not take it go from a hot to a cold worked from a cold - a hot so what I'm saying is you know don't leave it in your car bring it inside then instantly open the case from like hot cold or cold to high because you will completely check the finish and while some people really dig that some people won't dig that and I've done that by accident and it was actually a really nice 56 strap that I had and it was perfect and I checked it and I didn't want to check it the way you can get around that not happening is basically let bring the case in and let it sit for like at least four or five hours and let that case get acclimated to the same temperature inside and all you have to do simply fill the case if the case is still cold don't open it polyurethane doesn't do that so you know have to worry about polyurethane but nitro finishes it will crack and totally spider and instantly alright so those are ten or more easy guitar hacks you can do to make your guitar play better or feel better or sound better all its up huge thanks to Dave Onorato follow him on instagram at dojo guitar repair he's posting stuff all the time yeah and he's a hell of a guitar player to see so yeah also if you're in the atlanta area and you need some tar work done this is this is my guy yeah give me a call yeah he does he does everything so and if you're watching this at some point in the future there's probably some kind of dojo YouTube channel out there which you should oh yeah t-shirts yeah so that haha that's not happening yet but no but it's at work I'm pushing him I'm pushing him into into doing it and by saying it on this video yes yes yes so it's out there in the public now comment on his Instagram comment on this video tell them how bad you want him to be on YouTube sharing this kind of information every day every week will say yeah I'm committing you to a lot anyways thanks everyone for watching please subscribe if you haven't done already which I got links to the green room I will also have links to everything we talked about in today's video down below those will probably be Amazon affiliate links so if you buy through that I'll get a small Commission which helps me on making video so anyways thanks for watching and I'll catch you guys on the next one you

Channel: Rhett Shull

Views: 1,476,060

Keywords: guitar hacks for beginners, guitar hacks & tricks, Rhett Shull, Dave Onorato, Dojo Guitar Repair, guitar maintenance, guitar maintenance tips, guitar maintenance kit, guitar maintenance electric, Guitar setup, guitar lesson, guitar tips, guitar tricks, beginner guitar, easy guitar lesson

Id: 4lWMkADBlCw

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019