[dennis1077]

Recently had my acoustic in a local shop for repair. Nothing serious. It was fretting out. Filed the nut, a few turns of the truss road and the guitar plays great now. The problem? For these minor adjustments, the shop had my guitar for 6 weeks! It seemed quite excessive to me (and set me back $90!).

When it came time to install new Dimarzios in my Strat, I brought the guitar to another local shop. This place does all work on the premises unlike the other place. The manager warned me that it might take a while because their guitar tech was backed up with work. A "long time" was defined as "two weeks" which sounded great compared to my experience with the other shop. It's now been 2 and a half weeks. With the weekend here, I'm sure it will be 3 weeks at least.

What have your experiences with guitar repair been like? Are these long wait times the industry norm or do I live in a town with slow service?

[slugworth]

That's ridiculous. If they are backed up they should at least let you "get in line" then bring your guitar in a day before they are ready to work on it. Maybe you could suggest that to them... or learn to do your own work.

[dennis1077]

It did seem ridiculous to me. Since it happened at two distinct shops, I started to think it was normal. The work isn't cheap either. Installing three pickups and a setup is setting me back almost $200. It definitely has inspired me to learn how to do my own work. I may pick up a cheap Squire and make it my project guitar.   

[greenlion]

Couple of thoughts:

Filing on the nut is not what fixes "fretting out", so the tech isn't telling you something.

Adjusting truss rods and replacing pickups are not difficult tasks. With as many instructional books and Youtube videos as are available today, there is no point in paying someone a lot of money to do something you can learn to do in one evening.

You can replace pickups in about half an hour. You need a 25 or 30 watt soldering iron, solder, a piece of sponge and a screwdriver or 2. The most useful specific tool I've ever owned is a small guitar set-up ruler from Stewmac. I use it to make every measurement for a complete set-up. They also sell them on Ebay for just a few dollars.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Turning the truss rod does cure fretting out assuming the neck was back-bowed and the fretting out was on the lower frets. 

All that said, $90 for what amounts to not even a setup seems high, I wouldn't charge anything close to that for filing slots and adjusting the rod.  Also, 6 weeks is more like refret turnaround. 

Sounds like whoever that was has more business than they need.  If you can go elsewhere and get competent work done, do it.

[darkbluemurder]

That was why I started working on my own guitars. I hated to leave the guitar at the shop for a pickup, pot or cap change for 2 to 3 weeks and paying for the work. Same for set ups. It's basically a matter of acquiring the right tools and know-how but it's not rocket science.

For serious work, i.e. woodwork of any kind I still have to rely on shops or luthiers though.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

You can replace pickups in about half an hour. You need a 25 or 30 watt soldering iron, solder, a piece of sponge and a screwdriver or 2.

Fully agree.

What also comes in handy is a long piece of insulated stranded wire (1.5 to 2 ft). When you desolder a pickup from its connections solder the wire to one of the pickup's wires. When you remove the pickup you automatically pull the wire through the wire channel. When you solder the new pickup to the wire you just pull on the wire, and the wire of the new pickup (provided it is long enough!) comes in without a hassle.

Cheers Stephan

[corypheus]

If you need to replace the strings, then yeah 30 mins for pickups and restringing/retuning sounds just about right (give 10 mins plus for floyd rose bridges, I'm real clumsy with them).

If it's just clean pickup installation with the already prepped guitar... 5-10 mins.

2 weeks plus is just ridiculous. Full guitar setup I did for a buddy of mine, which included new bridge installation, new tuners, fret leveling, new electronics and of course new set of DiMarzio pickups set us back only couple of hours, of which the fret leveling took the majority of the time.

You can assemble a superstrat from parts and install all the hardware and electronics and set it up in one afternoon.

Your nose is being pulled.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

Full guitar setup I did for a buddy of mine, which included new bridge installation, new tuners, fret leveling, new electronics and of course new set of DiMarzio pickups set us back only couple of hours, of which the fret leveling took the majority of the time.

I'd like to observe that and critique the results.

[corypheus]

Full guitar setup I did for a buddy of mine, which included new bridge installation, new tuners, fret leveling, new electronics and of course new set of DiMarzio pickups set us back only couple of hours, of which the fret leveling took the majority of the time.

I'd like to observe that and critique the results.

I wish you were there, it'd have been more fun, or you could have jumped right in while I'm drinking some beer. Regardless, the guitar was awesome afterwards, very playable and sounded really sweet, and it was a cheap washburn too. For fret leveling I just used sanding beam, since it didn't require that much, well, leveling. I'd like to think I did a pretty good job, specifically because I am self-taught and only had prior experience from dozen something guitars I did for myself and some other friends.

Plek machine would have sorted out in mere minutes.

Kicker here is (back to topic), someone qualified for repairs, someone that does it everyday for the living, would be able to do it in even shorter times, and probably better too.

[slugworth]

I'm of the opinion that leveled frets aren't playable until they've had a careful recrown and polish afterwards. That alone would take me at least a couple of hours.

[corypheus]

I'm of the opinion that leveled frets aren't playable until they've had a careful recrown and polish afterwards. That alone would take me at least a couple of hours.

Didn't require substantial work, I sanded them - then rerounded them. Was done in about two hours, or rather few mins less, I was gentle. Was very playable afterwards.

It was Washburn WI64, a used beat-up cheapo, but otherwise pretty decent guitar (I believe Indonesian, nato made etc).

Edit: For the thread starter, learn how to do your own guitar work. Plenty of videos online. I guess your local town techs are ridiculously slow...

[rgand]

I do most of my own work. I recently get a new neck and not having any fret files or experience working with frets, I took it to a local tech to get installed. He told me it would take 3 or 4 days since he was backed up. He called me on the 2nd day and said it was ready. In that time, he installed the neck and made sure everything was properly leveled and set up, including any nut work. He apologized for charging $85 instead of the quoted $80 because he had to dress a couple of frets. I'd pay more than that for a set of decent files.

Any pickup installation, wiring or other work, I do myself. It's easy and can be fun. When you're done, you know exactly what you have.

[buddroyce]

Pickup installations I'd say are a good thing to learn how to do on your own. Especially if you get bitten by the pickup bug and want to start testing out different pickups.