Originally Posted by: Music_Maestro

How far would anyone here go to self-maintain their own guitars?

A bit of a 'how long is a piece of string?' question. The pragmatic answer as I see it is that it's really up to each individual's level of competence, confidence, access to the tools required & motivation -access to/lack of access to a luthier.

Plenty of vids and good 'how to' books out there -which I use.

[br]I do all my own maintenance mainly because I'm that way inclined, but unashamedly I admit I like to save a quid to spend elsewhere. There's also the aspect of 'if you want a job done well, do it yourself'. I don't see any point paying for something I can do with greater diligence myself.

IME most maintenance tasks can be performed with fairly inexpensive rudimentiary tools, and just take a bit of knowledge, which can be researched, accompanied by 'have a go' trial and error, repeat or practice if you get it wrong until you get it right and the subsequent confidence which develops with that process to acquire the necessary skills.

I do all my own guitar maintenance including electronics. Remove and replace pickups, pots, capacitors, which I select. Set them up. i.e. pickup heights. Physical maintenance, really just parts fitting. i.e. Swapping out bridges, saddles, tuners, string trees etc. I have swapped out a nut, which is a bit trickier getting just right. Restrings of course, and my own setups are the norm. I polish fret ends and frets if required. I'd have a go at recrowning them if necessary.

I'd possibly stop at a refret which requires an investment in quality tools -or maybe not. Haven't had to have one done yet, but they are [u]frightfully[/u] expensive to have performed by a luthier in my country. So much so, unless it's a high end Gibson et al, may as well buy a new guitar instead -or neck if a bolt on.