21 February, 2012

I’m extremely proud and excited to introduce a different type of Newsletter for you this week.

‘Deptford’ John Armitage is widely regarded as one of the most experienced, knowledgable and respected Guitar Techs in the industry. He has been responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of instruments for artists such as Iron Maiden, Manic Street Preachers, Motorhead, Stereophonics, Whitesnake, Scorpions and more recently Take That and George Michael in a career spanning over 30 years.

Deptford John has kindly offered to share his invaluable expertise exclusively to A Strings in a series of ‘Tech Tips’ over the forthcoming months. These will be published via the A Strings Newsletter and archived in the Backstage Blog on the website.

To find out more about Deptford John or to enlist his services via his Guitar Hospital workshops, visit his website – http://guitarhospital.co.uk/

‘Deptford’ John Armitage, owner of the Guitar Hospital chain of workshops
www.guitarhospital.co.uk
Enquiries to thedoctor@guitarhospital.co.uk

Basic Guitar Maintenance
1. Always wipe your guitar strings down when you have finished playing, using a soft, lint free cloth to do the job properly. Slide a cloth under the strings too as sweat and dirt gathers on the underside of the strings also.
Wipe down the back of the neck and body where your forearm rubs on the guitar as sweat and dead skin cells that stick to these areas slow your movement up and down the neck as well as causing your forearm to ‘rub’ on the body creating friction on a soft part of your skin. Planet Waves make great cleaning cloths.

2. When changing your strings it’s important to clean off the general detrieus from the fretboard. This will keep the frets brighter and create a cleaner note as well as preventing the fretboard from drying out. Gorgomyte is a fantastic product for this job.

3. Buy a 1” soft bristle paint brush and use it to clean the dust that accumulates on the bridge, the area under the strings and around the pickups and headstock. This light dusting will keep your bridge dust and rust free.

4. Always check your strap hooks are tightly screwed into the body of the guitar. On solid body electrics if the hole gets too big, jam a couple of cocktail sticks covered in wood glue into the hole. The wood is exceedingly hard and will not disintegrate as easily. Screw the strap button into here again and it will be as good as new.

Electric & Bass Guitar Maintenance,Tech Tips with Deptford John Armitage,UncategorizedNo comments