Guitar shop repair shame and proof I am an idiot :D /shame

[stxrus]

Sometimes the simplest of solutions are the hardest to find

 

[jays0n]

I have done something similar. Had a bike that had a squeak that drove me nuts. I bought all kinds of special tools and packed bearings, bottom brackets, etc. All over the bike. Still squeaking when standing on steep climbs. Took it to the local shop where I was a rider on their race team. They put grease on the seat post. Squeak gone

 

[HaWE]

Yep. I’ve bought some used guitars and tried to remove that pickguard film on a ten year old guitar. What a freakin nightmare. And no, it won’t help your resale value. Peel that crap off, people!

When I bought my motorbike, it had an ugly plastik sticker with informations on the top of the tank.What a stupid place for it ! So I tried to remove it but could not remove it in one piece.It only went off in little flakes, leaving a sticky surface.
Also I had to be careful not to damage the finish of the tank.I think it took about 1 hour to remove that sticker and to clean the whole area were the sticker had been.I know myself, so I forced myself to be patient but fortunately ended up with no scratches and a shiny tank.

 

[HaWE]

I can't tell you how many times I have done that. Once I thought my microwave control panel was getting foggy and needed replaced so I called a repair guy, he comes out and peels the film off the control panel. $85

I have a digital 8 trac recorder for now maybe 10 years.Also recently discovered that there was a plastic film on the display

 

[archetype]

How embarrassing!

Whatever you do, keep it to yourself!!!

[My partner discovered last week that the mobile phone she's had since 2019 still had the plastic protective cover on the screen. She thought it was scratched but it was just a mark on the plastic.]

Neil: How d'you like your new Blackberry?
John: I don't know... the screen's got a little scratch already and some bubbles
Neil: Did you take the clear plastic off?
John: Oh... ... ... ... ... Ok, I fixed it.

- My coworker talking to my boss at lunch in a bar, eons ago

 

[jrblue]

Glad it worked out. Working on it yourself and taking it to a tech outside the store was a bad mistake, as was actually purchasing a guitar when all other strings but one play fine. Typically, when that's the case -- one weird string -- it is not a general relief issue or bridge height issue, as those things usually affect a few, or all the strings. You lucked out, and were smary not to touch the frets, etc. One thing only seems strange to me. Usually, when something sounds funny on a string, I'll pinch it between my thumb and forefinger and run those up and down the string just to feel of there's something unusual happening. But regardless, what a relief to have a nothingburger resolution. I'll play the fool anyday if the conclusion is that thew issue goes away.

 

[dkmw]

I got a new acoustic a couple of years ago. After just a few days of playing, I noticed the pickguard was quite scratched.
It took me another couple of weeks before I realized there was plastic film on there. Doh!

Glad to see I’m in good company here…

 

[ClashCityTele]

This will never happen to me. Stickers and film go as soon as I know it's a keeper. Kind of a problem I have.
In fact, I've seen some recent posts with film still on the pickguard or pickups and really, really want to arrive at the poster's homes to remove it.

Here's some guitar porn for you. Enjoy.

 

[ClashCityTele]

I've been playing this for days and there's something not right.
I can't quite put my finger on it. In fact, I can't put any of my fingers on it.
What do you reckon?

 

[joe.attaboy]

I would tell that story to everyone, especially at gigs. That's a great story. We're all human. Well, most of us, anyway.

 

[stepvan]

SCORE!

Don't beat yourself up for this because even your tech missed it. Sometimes we cannot see the forest because of all those trees blocking our view.

However, I wouldn't tell anyone about this



I've done it. We've all done it.

Yup

 

[Controller]

Hey, a plastic film is important for protecting things. That's why our parents covered sofas with plastic!

 

[Lone_Poor_Boy]

One of my worst 'facepalm' moments was with a Gateway PC I had just received back in the early 90's I think, so with a CRT monitor and DOS boot.

After a day of troubleshooting myself I called tech support and after sitting on hold for 30 minutes I fiddled with a knob I didn't know was there under the monitor and the DOS prompt scrolled up from off screen.

This monitor had dials to adjust screen size and the dial had somehow gotten rolled to push the DOS prompt down off the screen.

 

[Preacher]

that's ok, I almost rewired an entire pedal board on the fly because the FOH wasn't getting a signal. There I am, on stage frustrated that no sound is coming out. I am popping and replacing patch cables on my board, changing out power leads and anything else I can think of. Sound guy comes up on stage to help. He looks at me and says, "you are gonna kill me."
I give him the "what?" look and he bends down and picks up the end of my guitar cable and plugs it into the guitar. "THUMP" through the system...
I almost cried.

 

[elihu]

Just remember Marc2211…that particular problem will never happen to you again. Because we remember our dumb mistakes really well!

 

[Jared Purdy]

So, a few weeks ago I picked up a new guitar - it is a NOS 2011 Schecter Solo Six LTD Goldtop. It played fantastically in the store, sounded gorgeous, but with one issue - the high e string choked out badly when bending. Their resident guitar tech was on vacation, otherwise they said they'd have done a setup on the spot. The action of the guitar was otherwise fantastic, everything looked right, it played like butter apart from this issue. I bought it anyway as I do all my own setups, and figured that it needed a truss rod tweak and set up, as it had hung on a shelf for 11 years.

I got the guitar home and didn't have time to touch it for 2 weeks but finally got it on the work bench 2 days ago... which is where the fun started.

Here is the repair log of shame:

- I took off the old strings assuming that they were 10's. Checked the neck with the strings off to get it flat. Checked the relief with the new strings on and adjusted to my 'normal' amount. ~0.010". Realised that there had been 9's on there, but no worries. The choking still happened. Ok, moving on.

- I checked the string height, it was ok compared to my other guitars, but I raised the bridge a fair amount on the high e side. Still choking out. Hmm. I raised the bridge higher, still no luck. So I went hunting for high frets and found a *very* marginal one at the 17th fret, but really small. Dealt with this. Choking still happening. I was now officially thinking it was weird.

- Figured I'd redo the setup but with 9.5 strings as I preferred how it felt with a lighter gauge, and work backwards rechecking everything to find the issue. Everything looked fine, and although the action was now a bit too high, it played really nicely at the cowboy chord end... but still choked out. Argh.

- Checked the nut height, all fine, checked the slot depth, all fine.

At this point I was exasperated and could see no cause for the issue and was also thoroughly pissed, so figured I'd go to my tech.

This morning I took it to my local store/luthier, who does all my repairs and hard setups, and explained the issue. They looked at the relief, string height (too high for me, but they said that it was within their setup boundaries), nut etc - they confirmed everything looked perfect. We scratched our heads for about 10 mins, checked for neck deviations, bad frets, anything that could explain it... We were all out of ideas.

Then they commented that it was amazing that a 2011 NOS guitar even still had the protective stickers on the pickups... ARGH. BINGO.

Turns out that the protective sticker on the neck pickup was beginning to be non-sticky and peel up... and was touching the string choking it out. I'd not noticed at all, and seemingly it was going back to the same place each time the strings were changed, blocking the path. We removed the sticker and everything was instantly fixed.

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. The shame of it! ><

Luckily everyone had a really good laugh, and not just at my expense (trying to work out the service charge for peeling off a sticker!), but wow, I'd never ever have thought that the sticker would have been the culprit... it'll teach me for leaving them on and trying to keep the guitar 'new'!

I don't think I'll ever live this one down in the store!!

I feel your pain. Totally. It's odd that it would have hung on the shelf for so many years, but, such is the vagaries of us musicians. A few years ago, I stumbled across what I figured was my dream Strat. It was the neck that had me take it off the wall at a local store. I didn't need to feel it to know that it was the one. And sure enough, it was. Why, I asked, had it hung on the wall for three years? It was a Custom Shop Strat, and they had marked it down considerably??? Bewildered, I bought it anyways, and the action was horrid. That is likely the number one reason it never sold. I took it to a local pro shop, paid them $150 or what ever it was, and it is my desert island guitar. I was not able to sort it out myself, in spite of having set up my own guitars for over thirty years, but the pros intervention saved the day. There were no stickers in the way, but sometimes we need the expertise of an outsider.

 

[Lou Tencodpees]

Sometimes the simplest of solutions are the hardest to find

Especially when you know enough things like relief, checking for high frets, etc. Been there and done than, more than once. Best tool in the box is Occam's Razor

 

[HaWE]

Another stupid thing once happened to me.... I was sitting and playing electric guitar and two or three strings always seemed to sound dull and without any sustain,almost not vibrating.It took some time until I found the solution for this "problem": I was wearing one of these sweatshirts that have a hood.And there was a ribbon going through this hood , hanging down on each side of my chest ( sorry, I hope you know what I mean, I can not explain it better ).So while playing, these two ends of the ribbon got in touch with the guitar strings and so the strings were muted. I simply cut off a long end of each side of that ribbon and the "problem" was gone

 

[HaWE]

that's ok, I almost rewired an entire pedal board on the fly because the FOH wasn't getting a signal. There I am, on stage frustrated that no sound is coming out. I am popping and replacing patch cables on my board, changing out power leads and anything else I can think of. Sound guy comes up on stage to help. He looks at me and says, "you are gonna kill me."
I give him the "what?" look and he bends down and picks up the end of my guitar cable and plugs it into the guitar. "THUMP" through the system...
I almost cried.

That also could have happened to me ....

 

[Skeet-1969]

After thirty years of playing I still catch myself not plugged in. I’ve learned to check there first.

I did just this the other day after rewiring a pot (I posted about it being a weird wiring). Once I returned it to normal, I couldn't get a sound out of the guitar at all. Was about to get inside it again when I saw I hadn't plugged it in. (Oye Vey!)
Mike B