Guitar maintenance can be a frustrating and expensive business. This instructable aims to help with that. If I missed something you think should be included, let me know; likewise, if you've got a question, put it in the comments and we'll see if we can't get you squared away.
An overview of the different parts of the guitar, so, just in case you don't know the official term for something, you won't miss what I'm trying to say. See the diagram for the most basic parts.
If you play regularly, you'll need to replace your strings more frequently, but even if you don't, change them every 4-6 weeks to keep your guitar sounding its best. You can tell when strings need changing by how they sound and look. Old strings sound lifeless, and will be discolored over the frets.
Are You Locking Your Banjo Strings?
Before setting the string height, set the relief--the curve--of the neck. You can check this by placing the guitar on its side and looking down the neck. Use the string as a straight edge; this is easier to do on the low E side. Most people like a very slight forward bow to the neck (that is, the strings are slightly closer to the fingerboard towards the nut than they are towards the bridge); you can also have it perfectly straight--completely up to you. What you don't want is a back bow, because you're going to get buzz halfway down the neck.
Relief is set by adjusting the truss rod in the neck. Depending on the guitar, you may do this at the headstock or at the base of the neck. On some Fender-style guitars you may need to remove the pickguard to get at the adjustment screw. Remember the lesson long passed down to us by our ancestors: righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. Tightening the truss rod will increase forward bow, and loosening it will increase back bow.
It is extremely important that you don't get carried away with this. The most you're ever going to tighten the truss rod's adjustment nut is a quarter turn. If that much adjustment doesn't fix it, take it to a repair shop. Over-tightening it can strip the truss rod, pop the fingerboard off, even warp or snap the neck.
How Many Windings Around Your Tuning Post?
You shouldn't need to adjust the relief regularly, but it's a good idea to check it if you change string gauges or if the guitar gets exposed to extreme temperatures, hot or cold.
Action is mostly a matter of personal preference. If you play mostly lead, and want to be able to play fast, you want it as low as it can go; if you do a lot of open string drones or chords and don't want to accidentally fret notes, you'll want it somewhere in the middle; if you're playing slide, you need it very high. If you do a lot of bending, you don't want the action as low as possible, as the string will fret out, which is when the string hits a fret and stops ringing.
On tune-o-matic style bridges, you're going to raise or lower either side of the bridge, with no option to individually adjust the saddles. On Fender-style bridges, each saddle can be raised and lowered independently. Generally speaking, you want the arch of the saddles to match that of the fingerboard. (The exception to this is for playing slide, where there usually is no arc to the strings at all.)
How To String A Guitar
To lower the saddle/bridge, tighten the set screw(s), and loosen them to raise it. This will change the pitch of the string, so retune it before you check how it plays. Regardless of your preference for the height, you want no buzzing when you fret a note, anywhere on the neck. If you get buzz, you need to raise it a bit.
In most basic terms, setting the intonation is making the guitar play at the exact same pitch when the string is struck unfretted and when fretted at the 12th fret (the octave). More technically, it's making sure the distance from nut to saddle is exactly correct for each string, so that the exact correct note plays when fretted.
You'll need to do this when a guitar is new, because they don't set it at the factory, and if you change string weights. If you've been using 10s and switch to 11s, gotta reset the intonation. Before starting, make sure your action is set where you like it. And make sure you press down like you normally do when playing the fretted note; too hard or too light will cause the note to ring incorrectly.
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Before you spend a ton of cash on new pickups, try changing the height first. It's a stupid-easy solution that can have a drastic effect on tone. If pickups are too close to the strings, you can get a lot of microphonic noise (string rubbing, pick clicking, etc), and it can also have a weird effect on the tone. If they're too far, the sound will be quiet and muted, like you're playing through a blanket. My personal sweet spot for height is for the pickup poles to be about 3/8 below the string when fretted at 15. There's not really a wrong or right with where you set them, exactly, beyond not too close or too far.
A pickup change is almost certainly the most common upgrade guitars get. Almost every guitar I've ever owned eventually got one, whether because the cheap pickups that come on budget guitars often break or sound like garbage, or because you just want to change the sound of the guitar.
Do your research before buying--pickups can be extremely expensive, but solid ones can be found without having to pay an arm and leg. Check YouTube for demos, read the manufacturer descriptions, read reviews; and think about what kind of sound you want. If you're playing metal, you don't want a jazz pickup or humbucker-sized P-90; if you're playing jazz, you don't want a way-overwound metal pickup that never even thought about a clean tone.
How To Change A String (with Locking Tuners)
Make sure you get the pickup you need, as well. Pickup cavities, mounting rings, etc. are (mostly) not created equal. Check the pictures to see which you have. There are 2 exceptions to this: single-coil pickups (Strat style, lipstick style, Mustang/Jaguar style) are mostly interchangeable. And the body cavity for p-90s and mini-humbuckers is the same, though you'll need a mounting ring or to drill mounting holes in the pickguard if going from p-90 to mini-humbucker.
For p-90 and Telecaster pickups specifically, you also need to get the right form factor. P-90s come in soapbar, which are screwed directly to the body and sit in a cavity, and dog-ear, which mount similar to most other types of pickup, hanging on a screw to either side. They are not interchangeable. Standard Telecaster bridge pickups have a different baseplate than other single-coil pickup styles, with 3 mounting screws instead of 2. And Telecaster Deluxes, and some Thinlines, have wide-range humbuckers, which are bigger than normal humbuckers.
Also, pickups are made specifically for neck or bridge; while you can install a bridge pickup in the neck position, or vice versa, it's not recommended. Bridge pickups are typically louder than the neck version of the exact same pickup model, to compensate for (usually) being further from the string, and the difference in the way the string rings just before the bridge (because it's the end of the line, the vibration loop has a smaller diameter than further from the edges--think about 2 girls holding either end of a jump rope and swinging it).
Acoustic Guitar Strings 80/20 Bronze/full Set/ 3 Full Sets Of Strings. — Southwest Acoustic Productsouthwest Acoustic Products
If you're doing a straight swap, not changing out anything else with the other electronics, and know how to use a soldering iron, this is really easy. Unscrew the original pickups. 1 at a time, trace the pickup cable to the pot or switch lug, and unsolder the hot lead(s) and ground, and remove the pickup. Install the new pickup, and solder its hot lead(s) and ground to the same locations as the original. This instructable has complete instructions on the process.
Don't like your knobs? Change them! But don't just yank on them, you're likely to bend the pot shaft. Take a piece of cloth--hand towel, washcloth, t-shirt--and wrap it around and under the knob, then pull up on the whole thing. This distributes the pressure evenly around the base of the knob, so it should pop right off. Then press the new one down. One thing to be aware of, some older guitars--you almost never see these anymore--will have pots that require a set-screw knob. It's easy to spot one--on 1 side of the knob there'll be a small, usually flat head, screw that tightens down to keep the knob in place. While you won't have as much selection when looking for new ones, they can be found.
Graphite Saddles Graphite saddles are a good upgrade, especially for tremolo users. They reduce breakage and tuning problems, and will (somewhat) increase string life. You can find them online for pretty reasonable prices (I paid $32 for the most recent set I
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