Originally Posted by: XykonThanks a lot for the quick reply :)

I guess I'll just get more of the 9-42 strings to be sure I have a good stock and not risk having to wait through a whole weekend if Murphy's law strikes breaking the last string on a Saturday 5 mins after the store closing ;)
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I won't even change strings if I'm down to my last pack for that guitar. :)

Originally Posted by: Xykon
I'm as interested in finding out about technics and various possibilities as I am in actually learning to play the instrument so I'll start googling around a bit when I don't have a chance to actually play (like at work). I'll start experimenting with the strings when I'm a bit more experienced with the playing and would actually notice a difference. :)

I highly recommend learning how to gve your guitar a basic set up. I'm not speaking of fret dressing or nut filing or things like that, but I feel every guitarist ought to know how to adjust his own relief, action and intonation.

Here's a straight-forward site I found great for learning set ups.
http://www.ibanezrules.com/tech/setup/index.htm

Here's a good forum on building
http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/

A good one on electronics (most of these guys are engineers and are way over my head :p)
http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?

Also check out http://www.stewmac.com/ You can learn a lot just by studying the specs and descriptions on what they sell, plus they have a lot of good tutorial videos.

[QUOTE=SlickString]
There's a whole lot been written about string gauges but when I looked into it a while ago there wasn't a single place with all the info right there. Much of it is personal taste so that means everyone has their own preference.

I had my Fender Strat set up by a luthier who really knows his stuff and he gave me a good background to the whole malarkey, liberally filled with his own views of course!