As with so many other things, the best way to show the importance of strap buttons is to look at what happens if they simply aren’t there, or if they don’t work correctly, or when they aren’t where they should be. The consequences include dropped guitars and resulting damage to headstocks, necks, bodies and wallets.  Conclusion: strap buttons are pretty darned important.

In future articles, I’ll spend more time on guitar design theory and how to best position a strap button from the start to maximize playability, comfort and balance. Right now, although the issue of positioning or re-positioning a strap button will come up, I’m going to focus on strap button issues in the context of collectible guitars. This is important because strap button-related issues are among the most common concerns when it comes to what should or should not be done to a collectible instrument.

First and foremost, you have to know what to look for as to whether an instrument has its original strap buttons in their original places. If you’re not sure, my usual recommendation (for just about anything) is that you deal with a reputable and knowledgeable seller and keep your trusted guitar tech in the loop. In addition, because we want to make you a Smarter Guitar Nut, you can educate yourself on this subject pretty quickly since there is abundant information on-line including pictures of almost any instrument and numerous other resources such as scans of original ads and vintage manufacturers’ catalogues.

The most common type of strap button, found on many brands including Gibson and Fender. These are easy to obtain including reliced versions like the one on the right.

You’ll notice there’s a pretty limited range of strap button types. Indeed, the most common type is used on the majority of electric guitars including Fenders and Gibsons. If these need to be replaced, they are readily available, including reasonably priced reliced versions. Just to keep life interesting, there are also, of course, a few very unusual types strap buttons and related hardware which, if missing, can be very hard to replace.

Once you’re sure what to look for, you can recognize whether a strap button has been replaced, added or re-positioned. An appropriate, well-installed replacement should- I suggest – not be a concern in terms of collectability and value. The big problems are:

• If a strap button has been added, it means there’s a hole in the guitar that wasn’t there originally. While the strap button is left in place, you can’t see that hole, but it means the button has to stay put regardless of where it is. Worse, if the installation wasn’t done neatly, there might be some additional cosmetic or even structural damage.
• If a strap button has been repositioned, this is a bit more serious because it means there’s now an extra hole in the guitar that might or might not be able to be touched up.

The strap loop on an old Kay Pro bass. If it’s missing, it will be tough to find a replacement.

Serious issues about added or repositioned strap buttons will be addressed in a future column. For now, you need to know two things:

1. As a buyer, this is something you need to ask about and as an owner/potential seller it’s something you need to stop and consider before making any changes yourself; and,
2. Strap button issues can affect the value of a collectible guitar, whether or not that alteration makes perfectly good sense in terms of improved balance and playability.

If changes or repairs have been or have to be made, you can decide if that’s a deal breaker.

Once you’ve got any issues resolved, if all that’s left is that a strap button is a bit loose, the fix is simple (that is: it’s simple if you’re dealing with a solid body guitar, hollow bodies will be dealt with in the next article):

A small piece of dowel, marked to show to show the depth of the screw hole.

Always wipe off any excess glue.

1) Remove the loose screw and the strap button;

2) Insert a piece of 1/8” dowel (or the traditional piece of match stick) into the hole and mark it to that depth;

3) Remove the dowel and cut it at the mark so it is the same length as the depth of the hole;

4) Coat the dowel with a thin, even layer of glue (white or, preferably yellow…not epoxy or super glue) and push it back into the hole;

5) Then, re-install the strap button.

6) If any excess glue squeezes out of the hole, remove the screw, wipe off the excess glue so none remains on the surface of the guitar and re-install.

An important note here about the term “tighten up”. This always means to turn something just until it stops. It does ­not mean turning it until it stops and then trying to turn it more with all your might. When tightening any component on a guitar with any tool, the rule is: Don’t force it! There are (almost) no guitar-repair situations where it is a good idea to try to force something to go more than it seems to want to go. If you ignore that warning, things can turn out very badly. How badly? Well, let’s just say there will be a future column dedicated to dealing with broken or stripped screws that remain stuck in places where you do not want them to be stuck.

If you manage to tighten up both strap buttons, congratulate yourself. You’ve just repaired one of the most common issues to be dealt with on almost any guitar. This fix should not affect the value of almost any instrument.

If, after going through the steps above two or three times, a screw still doesn’t tighten up, its hole has to be doweled and re-drilled.

Dowelling and re-drilling a hole is a much more complicated procedure and the typical Smarter Guitar Nut would be indeed smarter to pass it over to his trusted tech. The Smarter Guitar Nut who is a bit more experienced with basic repair work should practice dowelling and re-drilling only on very expendable guitars or on scrap wood. We’ll deal with this procedure in a subsequent instalment of the Smarter Guitar Nut.

THE SMARTER GUITAR NUT #3: Strap Buttons – Part 1 from MyRareGuitars.com

There’s a lot of bad information on the internet, as I was reminded while trying to resuscitate a recent score: a Silver Sparkle 20th Anniversary Squier Jagmaster.

 
Don’t laugh, it’s paid for!

It’s not a guitar for everyone, but I bought my first about five years ago when I started playing guitar again as an adult. It was fun and cheap, and with a little bit of elbow grease it cleaned up nicely and, after a pro setup, played great. Then I set my sights on more “appropriate” guitars and got myself a Fender Highway One Stratocaster, you know, a proper “dad” guitar.

 Selling the Jagmaster was a mistake (as my daughter frequently reminded me), and when I had some “mad money” recently, I started searching for a replacement. A couple weeks later, I picked one up through Reverb.com. It was a little more expensive than I would have hoped and rougher than I expected. The strings were crusty, every tuner and bolt was loose, and the pickguard was warped. But the electronics worked, the neck was straight, and there was almost no fret wear, though they were dull and a little rough.

All that stuff is easy enough to fix as part of a regular cleanup and restring. This one needed a little more, and in addition to my new and regularly applied Dremel and Nu Finish fret polish routine, which I’ll show next, I decided to fix the damn pickguard. I reckon if a third of a guitar’s face looks off, it’s going to show. And at the very least, it’s going to gnaw at me. Forever. Or until I’m done losing sleep over it and fix it, so why not do it now?

A quick Google search brought up no shortage of bad ideas, all suggesting that you essentially bake the pickguard and, before it melts, burns, discolors or sets off the smoke alarms, pull it out of the oven — careful not to stretch it — and stack books on it till it cools and lays flat.

If you’re inclined to follow that advice, I’m going to guess you don’t have enough books around to pull off that stunt. That said, follow the steps below at your own peril, as I did, and don’t do this to a vintage instrument.

            Here’s how I fixed a warped pickguard:

1. Remove the pickguard from the guitar, and electronics from the pickguard.

Here you can see the bowing of the pickguard

2. Clear some space and wash the dishes in the kitchen sink. You’ll want the room to work, and you’ll score some points with the wife or roommate.

3. Find a cookie sheet or cutting board that’s bigger than your pickguard, but that fits in your sink.

4. Boil some water – enough to fill the sink and cover the cutting board and pickguard with another inch or so. I used a kettle and the biggest pot we have to boil some more.

5. Put the cookie sheet/cutting board in the sink, and place the pickguard in face down, so you don’t scratch it up like I did.

6. Pour the boiling water over it, then put the pot, with the hot water in it, on top.

7. Wait 2 minutes.

8. Remove the pot, then the cutting board with pickguard, and re-stack them to cool.

I let the whole thing cool for about 10 minutes after 2 minutes in the sink.

9. Enjoy a victory beer.

10. Buff it out with car wax, I use Nu Finish.

That’s flat!

11. Reinstall, etc.

There are more than a couple benefits to using hot water rather than an oven. It’s a lot more controllable, as you can see the pickguard throughout the entire process, and the timing is flexible without introducing the possibility of smoke, fire or nasty fumes.

How to Fix a Warped Pickguard from MyRareGuitars.com

1. Kitchen Magnet Bar

While this is of course great for holding your knives and other kitchen tools, many of the tools you will be using on your guitar are made of metal and can be kept organized by putting one of these on your wall. Having metal tools strewn about your work bench is a recipe for making scratches and dents on your instrument, and it’s simply easier to find what you’re looking for when they’re hanging right in front of you. If you plan on doing work for others, keeping a tidy work space is a major selling point for your customers. If I went to drop my guitar off with someone and saw a work desk covered in tools, glue and sawdust, I’d be headed out the door! As a sidenote: make sure the bar is installed a safe distance away from where you’re doing the work. That is, not directly above the guitar… falling tools are even worse than ones on the workbench!

2. Tape

You can use different types of tape for many different things when it comes to guitar work. The best use would of course be for protecting the guitar when you are doing other work to it. We’ve all seen the green tape on the fretboard for when you’re doing fretwork – but that’s not the only use! Electrical tape is a must if you plan on doing any soldering. If you have any bare wires, or want to tie wires together to keep things neat on the inside, a small piece of this is the best way to go. You can use the same green tape you would for fretwork for other protective purposes, too, like if you have to do any sort of drilling into the body (bigsby installations, strap button installations, etc). On top of potential damage from hard tools, glue spillage is something that can cause you more grief in the future, and is best prevented by protecting the area you are gluing with some tape. For example, if you’re gluing in a nut or filling nut slots, lay a couple strips of tape on either side to collect spillage.
Another use would be a quick-fix for loose knobs. If a knob isn’t quite grasping the pot-tabs well enough, you can wrap a small piece of tape around the tab to “increase” it’s size, and allow for a more snug fit.

3. Black Sharpie

It may not be a professional re-touching job, but you wouldn’t believe how often a black magic marker can be used to cover up blemishes. If you’ve got a dark colored guitar with a small paint chip, some black binding with a ding in it, or a dark fingerboard with an imperfection, a simple dab with a black sharpie can virtually make the problem disappear in many cases.
In addition, if not for covering up damage, a marker comes in handy for when it comes time to level and dress frets. Drawing a line down each fret will give you a good reference point of which frets are actually “getting hit” when doing your fret level, and will also be a good indicator of the “crown” on your fret after you start using a crowning file. You can check out an article for more on that here.

4. Pencil / Nut Sauce

If you find that your guitar is falling out of tune easy, or strings keep “catching” when you tune them, it could be that you need to add a little lubrication to the nut slots. An age-old trick would be filling in the nut slots with a bit of graphite, most easily accomplished by drawing into them with a pencil. It seems silly, but it works! There are also products that exist that work in the same way. such as “Big Bends Nut Sauce”, which works just as well, if not better than the graphite.

5. Glue

OK, so typically you shouldn’t need glue for your average guitar set-up, and it’s sort of the last thing you want to use when it comes to “minor” repairs – but sometimes it’s necessary. Two types of glue would suffice for general work: a white wood glue, and a super glue. Sometimes frets can lift a bit from use (especially at their ends), and buildup getting underneath them. Before jumping to filing and fret leveling, you’ll want to make sure they are seated properly. An application of super glue with some downward pressure (clamps would be best if you have them) would help seat them, and keep them in place for when it comes time to take the file to it. Another common piece to come loose is the nut. Some would argue that if the nut on your guitar is loose, to just leave it – but I prefer to have it at least secure enough that it will stay on its own without string tension. Not so much glue that you need to saw it out in the future, just a dab; enough that a gentle tap while knock it out. While we’re on the topic of using glue for the nut, it will also come in handy should you find the need to fill in your nut slots. If a string sits too low and causes fret buzz, the simple solution is to use a concoction of super glue and baking soda to fill in the slot, and re-file so the string sits at a good height. An alternative to baking soda would be some tiny shavings of the nut material your nut is made of.

6. Razor Blade

This can be your fingerboard “deep cleansing” tool. You can lemon oil your guitar neck as much as you want – the fact is, sometimes dirt and grime gets stuck in the wood fibers and right close to the frets. In order to get it out, you’d need to get rid of some of the wood that’s holding it in. Here you would use the razor blade as a scraper – stand it up so it’s 90 degrees to the fingerboard, and scrape along the wood-grain (from fret to fret.) You can use sand paper to do the same thing, I just prefer to scrape, and easily get close to each fret with the blade. When finished, some steel wool will help polish up the board, and you can then apply your lemon oil.

7. Sandpaper

As mentioned before, this can be used for cleaning tough spots on the fingerboard like the razor blade. More often, however, sandpaper will be your best friend for everything that involves fretwork. Leveling? Sandpaper stuck to leveling-beam or straight edge. Polishing? Different grits of sand paper, starting from a low grit and working your way to a higher one.
Aside from this, sandpaper makes for a good shimming material if you need it. Save a few strips of your used sandpaper – that way, if you come across a bolt-on neck that needs to be raised at the heel, you can use however much sandpaper you need to act as a shim for the neck.

8. Toothpicks

Whenever you have a loose screw, toothpicks can help tighten their bite. Simply remove the screw, and put the toothpick (or part of it) in its hole. Tighten up the screw again, and the toothpick will act as a wood filler, making the screw bite securely into the guitar again.

9. Flat Shoelace

This is a great leverage tool. Sometimes volume and tone knobs are just on too tight to be lifted by hand, and many people would jump straight for a flat-head screwdriver to pry them off. This doesn’t always end so well – plastics can crack or break, and it’s easy to slip and potentially damage the guitar. A flat shoelace slipped underneath the knob will apply even force to its underside, and it’s a soft material so you can pretty much guarantee you won’t end up breaking the knob!

10. Water and Cloth

If you’ve got a guitar that is in desperate need of a wipe-down, before jumping to the WD-40 and chemical cleaners, first try a dry cloth, then a damp cloth. You don’t want to give your guitar a bath here, so be sure to dry any wet spots as you go. In many cases you’ll find this will be enough to get the cleaning job done, and you can add a little guitar polish to shine it back up. As an added note: even before you go at it with the cloth, you may want to blow or use some compressed air to get rid of any particles that may be on the guitar. Wiping the cloth around on it without doing this may drag leftover particles and leave behind nasty surface scratches.

Ten Cheap and Handy Tools for Guitar Work from MyRareGuitars.com

At some point in your guitar-playing life, you’ll likely experience a faulty tuning key and need to replace it. Maybe your current tuners aren’t accurate enough, or seem to weigh your headstock down? Or maybe you just like the look of Kluson “green keys” instead of your Gotoh’s. Whatever the reason, it’s important to have at least somewhat of an understanding of what these things are and how they work before you spend money to replace them.

The first thing you’ll need to look at, of course, are the technical specs of the tuners you currently have to make sure you don’t cause yourself too much grief installing the next ones. The best case scenario would be you finding a set that will slip seamlessly into the peg-holes of your guitar without any modification. The next best would be the required installation of “adapter bushings”, which are basically just different thicknesses of metal used to, well, adapt to variations in diameter.

The last thing you want to end up doing is widen the peg holes. Sure, it might work – but if you’re doing this to a valuable guitar, you don’t want to be doing anything that is changing it from its original condition.
Most machine heads will show in-depth measurements of all of their components so there are no surprises when it comes time to install. A good example would be here on Stewmac’s site that shows basically everything you’d need to know as far as sizing goes.

Aside from the physical-size measurements of the peg, one of the first specs you’ll always see is a ratio such as “14:1”. This has nothing to do with the installation of the part, but rather its functionality. Now, let’s not forget the ultimate reason these things exist… to keep your guitar in tune! If you were having trouble tuning, or your tuner seemed to constantly “skip” over notes or pitches, this ratio is something you want to pay close attention to. Essentially, the higher the number, the finer the tuning you are able to do. The first number is the number of full turns it takes you to turn the peg before the inner gear completes one full cycle. Therefore, if you had something that was 1:1, you can imagine how hard it would be to zero in on any given pitch. If you feel like you want something that’s a little more precise, try to find a higher ratio tuning key. I’d recommend something 16:1 or higher.

A further method of helping keep your guitar in tune would be to invest in a set of locking tuners. They basically do what the name suggests – lock your strings in place. They help prevent string slippage without the string having to be wrapped around the peg-shaft “X” number of times, which makes for an easier re-string. At the end of the day, a string is going to go out of tune because something moved somewhere. Locking things in place is a good way of preventing that!
If you’ve ever held a really old guitar in your hands and tried to tune it, you may have seen plastic tuning pegs literally fall apart in your hands. Over time, and from lots of use, the plastic can come loose from the metal. At first this can cause tuning problems as it doesn’t properly grasp the mechanism when you turn it, and later, the piece can crumble and break. You can find high-quality keys made with plastic that will last longer than others, but if you really want something that will stand the test of time, metal is your best bet.

The last thing you might want to ask yourself when considering a new set of pegs is “will this change affect my tone?” You’ll get a different answer for this depending on who you ask.
First of all, of course a better set of pegs will be less prone to rattle, fall out of tune or break which are all things that I think we can all agree makes your guitar sound better. The only other thing that can really be argued for having an affect on your tone here would be the weight of the pegs. Different players and luthiers could argue for days over which is better – a heavier headstock or lighter. Some would say the heaviness would take away from the vibration of the neck, while others would say it adds sustain. Some would argue that it really doesn’t matter. One thing that we can be sure of, however, is that a heavier/lighter set of pegs might change how you play. A guitar that is heavier or lighter at the headstock will have a different balance, and will feel different in your hands and around your shoulders. Probably not by much, but it doesn’t take much for a guitar to feel different, and consequently make you play different. My advice would be to go with a set that doesn’t change the balance of your guitar too much.
Remember, the majority of your tone comes from your fingertips, which comes from you, which comes from your current state of mind, which can be affected by how comfortable or uncomfortable an instrument is in your hands!

Tips on Tones: Issue #21 – Machine Heads from MyRareGuitars.com

For guitar players, there’s a ton of little annoyances that we all sort of “put up with”, or don’t bother trying to fix because we aren’t aware of an easy solution. Maybe they aren’t all stopping you in your tracks, but there are ways around them to help make your life much easier. Here’s my list of eight things to consider:

1. Cut Picks from Old Credit Cards / Plastic Containers

We’re all victim to losing ridiculous quantities of guitar picks. By now I’m sure we’ve all accepted this as a norm, and while this first tip won’t exactly stop this from happening – it could save you if you find yourself without a pick in a pinch. Old credit cards or margarine containers that you’re going to cut up and throw out anyways can be cut into pick shapes and used, and if you lose them then it’s not the end of the world. Another thing to consider is keeping your favourite picks in your wallet. Get into a habit of putting them away in it whenever you finish playing – your wallet is something you’ve hopefully already trained yourself not to lose, so in this way you won’t lose your picks by default.

2. Use Noise to Tune

If you don’t have a tuner but do have a loud amp, you can actually use the 60 cycle frequenecy it hums to tune. Try this: plug your patch cable in but not your guitar. You should hear a loud “humming” noise, and within it you can actually pick out a particular tone. When plugged directly into a tuner, it looks like this frequency kind of bounces back and forth between a B and Bb note. Tune your B string to this note, and then the rest of the strings to the B string. You won’t be perfectly in standard, but you’ll be close enough to play by yourself and have things sound good.

3. Use a Pencil to help Stay in Tune

One of the leading causes of your guitar slipping out of tune is the condition of the nut slots. Strings can catch and be pulled, and not return to proper pitch especially after string bending. The nut slot shouldn’t be clutching the string with an iron grasp, but rather cup it and allow it to move freely. If your guitar goes out of tune a lot during play, try taking a pencil and “drawing” into the nut slots with some force. The idea is to get some graphite in there to act as a string lubricant, and hopefully help your strings stay in tune much better.

4. Toohpicks for Loose Screws

Screws and components that are loose can cause rattling sounds when you play, or can just be plain dangerous. You don’t want to have a strap button fall out on you while you play! An easy fix for this is to take out the loose screw, and use a toothpick (or pieces of toothpick, dependent on the screwhole size) to fill it. Put the screw back in, and voila! The screw is biting firmly into wood again.

5. Use a Shop Towel / Cloth when Stretching Strings

Here’s one for tuning again. The most frequent time your guitar is going to fall out of tune is after a fresh restring; especially if the strings weren’t stretched properly. The best way to ensure they’re nice and stretched is to apply a little heat to them while you’re pulling on them. Put a cloth or shop towel in your hand, and glide your hand up and down the length of each string while pulling it to stretch. This will add friction, which consequently heats up the string while you stretch it. It’s a more efficient way to get your strings used to their new tension faster.

6. Velcro for Pedals

If you’ve ever gone to band practice (or worse, hit the stage) and noticed one of your pedals is out of juice, it can spell trouble if you didn’t think to bring a screwdriver to open up the battery casing. To avoid this scenario altogether, remove all the screws when you get the pedal and line the sides of the casing with Velcro instead. This way you can easily open and shut the box much faster, whether or not you have immediate access to the tools it would normally require.

7. Shoelace for Knobs

Whether it be to fix or clean your electronics, or just to replace your guitar’s volume and tone knobs, there may be a point that you need to take off the existing knobs. Sometimes this is easy, and other times it’s near impossible. Top hat knobs are notorious for this, especially when placed so close to the guitar body. An easy way around this is to use a flat shoelace. Simply slide the shoelace under the knob, wrap it around, and pull up!

8. String for Hollowbody Volume and Tone pot Repairs

Here’s another to go along with electronics repairs. Some guitars are not built to be easily accessible. For example, many hollow or semi hollow guitar electronics can only be accessed through their pickup cavity or F-holes. This makes it tricky to get to the parts you need to work on, and even trickier to get them back to where they belong. The fix? Loosen off the knob, then tie a piece of string or fishing line to the top of the pot. Then you can let the pot fall and pull it out wherever you need to so you can work on it, and simply pull the string to bring the pot back through when you’re done.

So there’s my eight cheap and easy tricks for all you guitar players out there! Have you got any “life hacks for guitar players” you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Eight Life-Hacks for the Every Day Guitar Player from MyRareGuitars.com