To all the buyers and sellers in the buy/sell forums

deg

New member
Dear all..

I am trying to educate all the buyers and window shoppers here..

for all of you who didin't know, once you remove the entire set of strings, the guitar neck will begin to lose its tension. The worst scenario you will have is the neck becoming badly warped, causing discomfort and unsmooth playing as the string action become higer than usual. Although you guys sellers might argue its only slight increase in action height, but the difference in sting action is obvious enough to drive you crazy.

Nobody is sure of how long has the guitar been left lytat without strings. If its a Japanese of higher grade guitar, its ok lah..as the guitar is of higher-end built, even if it's warp, it is still worth the money to tune back the neck and everything. However, lower end ones, like indon, china, taiwan, thailand, espcially korea guitars, (and especially 2nd hand ones), once the neck is warp, even if you tune it back straight, the damage is already done, it will still be warp again one of this day. As many ppl know, certain lower end guitars their neck cannot last one.

Even if you buyers dun mind spending the money to tune back the neck, its not worthwhile doing it. All this maintenance costs, subsequently, you add them together, you can actually buy more than 1 pcs of lower end guitars already. and instead of wasting all the money to fix the neck, might as well spend this money on jamming, buying new or upgrading your equipments.

well..i am not here to spoil market or what, i am just trying to give my opinions to all the buyers and sellers out there. Buyers, hope my opinions can help you all. For sellers, pls dun do this kind of thing anymore, dun sell spoilt parts or stuff to all other ppl out there. If you guys got spot carefully, they are ppl selling low end, non genuine parts or even spoil parts at exorbitant and unrealistic prices. Pls be fair to the buyers. A few hundred dollars may be nothing to you, sellers, but to the buyers, its how much they have to sacrifice.
 
That's BS plain and simple. Most manufacturers RECOMMEND you loosen the tension of the strings if placing the guitar in storage for long periods .
 
its all BS.

i've got more than 10 guitars string up and tune up. most of them only see action once a year. they're aye OK. :wink:
 
I've seen many a seller bring "unstrung" axes to Dan -when check most of them all have trust rod problems...

I also kena recently but I managed to repair the truss rod nut.

sometimes ah .... hiya...
 
some of u r rite..

when restringing is being dun, usually wad ppl does is they will remove the whole set of strings and attach the new ones.

however this series of actions takes place between 15 to 30 mins.

Shit happens when the guitar is left with all the strings being removed and not replaced for a long period of time and also being placed in wrong positions, like for example, standing with the headstock lying against the wall etc.

lousy or lower end necks are prone and sensitivity to this kind of careless damage. higher end guitars also has the same problems, but isn't prone and sensitive.

when buying a 2nd hand guitar online, how sure are you, buyers, that the guitar has its strings just removed for photo taking and being replaced immediately after that.

i once bought a used samick strat during my noob days. I was actually stupid enuff to remove all the strings to clean the guitar and happily left it hangaing without any strings for almost more than a month. In the end, on of the old time technician cum studio boss that i know happened to restring my strat and he told me that my neck is badly warp.

i understand that everyone has their own knowledge of guitar. Anyway, its a good idea to actually share our knowledge with everyone here. Together we might even be able to correct some truths and myths about guitars.
 
if a guitar or bass needs to be stored for some time or shipped off to a faraway place, loosen the strings & LOOSEN THE TRUSS ROD also.
 
not so sure, about if the 'once string is gone, neck starts to get facked thing is true' so wont comment on that.

But its basic morale values to not sell faulty equipments to the ignorant. But like people would listen, sum would just do anything for money

the only thing the buyer can do is try out a piece of equipment before they buy
 
when i store my guitars, i place them in my padded soft cases and they are all lying against the wall with the front facing the wall...

actaully i dunno if this prevents the action from increasing over time... but wth, u gotta place ur guitar in 1 direction or another so i chose this... ha! :twisted:
 
for me i put my guitars on my guitar stands...

keeping it in the bag can prevent the pickup and gotoh areas from collecting dust, but will make the strings rust somehow..

in fact, storing and placement of the guitar plays a very important part in maintaining ur guitars too..
 
does the change in neck tension as a result of removing strings be detrimental to playability? depends.

if you have a thick set (>0.011set) in your guitar, upon removal of these, the neck may/ may not manifest severe warping; the neck profile also plays a part here. should there be a tension related anomaly, it's likely to be cured by truss rod adjustments. i have left some of my guitars stringless for weeks with no severe neck defects.

however, this is not the case with bass; it's attributable to the longer neck in general which is more susceptible to tension/ temperature related warping.

the sound advice given in previous threads is that one should check the instrument in person before any transactions take place. it is hoped that a deal would not be called off simply upon the knowledge that all the strings were ever removed before.
 
something's feels like it's missing... anyways my guitar neck didn't warped when my friend go cut all of the strings it has last time and left about 2 months untouched.... now he has re strung the guitar and seems to be in ok no warping and shit....

Something's amiss..
 
hey, deg!

maybe try putting some silica packets into ur guitar bag or into ur guitar to prevent moisture from collecting in the guitar bag! :twisted:
 
I think it's BS. I got at least 10 guitars at home and left untuned unless i wanna play them then tune up... All my guitar truss rods have been tightened to prevent the neck from warping.... all on stands too... and my string action never affected...
 
All my guitar truss rods have been tightened to prevent the neck from warping....

this statement doesnt make sense to me!

if your neck doesnt warp before and after the strings go on
that means 'tightening' the truss rod had no effect!
 
There is a certain truth to what deg has said and it applies to poor quality guitars, diff neck types and its also possible to high end guitars given the time and storage condition.

Thas why i shy from buying guitars that were kept unstrung (with tension) for a long time coz its a pain getting it back proper!

This happens to low end production guitars due to the wood *dwell* period is shorten prior to final cut, prep, fret and finish due to demand.

Btw if it decides to warp ...there nothing much can be done .. :D
When wood, any wood, be it the 2' x 4' on your deck or the chunk known as a guitar neck decides to go it's own way you'll be hard pressed to convince it otherwise. That is why I make no attempt to force a change in it's shape with heat.
 
just to correct some ppl here..

in my previous post..i was saying..if the guitar is not STRUNG the neck would lose its tension and warps.

as long as there is are strings still attached on the guitar (nevermind if its in tune..down tune, up tune, off tune..wadeva tune...), and or the guitar is left stringless for not very long periods (maybe during changing of strings, changing of pickups, cleaning the pickguard areas, changing or maintaining the bridge etc..), it won't affect the tension, if there's any lost of tension, it won't be so much to cause "damage"(warping..)..
 
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