MooMoo!
New Yorker
im currently refinishing my guitar and was wondering if its possible to remove o sockets that the pins that hold the bridge on screw into. and would it be ok to take the neck off?
well thats just as well cos i took it off before i read this! *phew* alas, it is a pretty worthless guitar, but i want to keep it as playable as possible, as its all i can afford at the moment. (maybe i could get it new pickups?) its nearly done, so im pleased. i was thinking of putting a wood stain on it rather than paint.gragravar said:Hey MooMoo,
Don't worry about it, it won't hurt to take the neck off for as long as you like, it won't warp unless it was going to anyway, so why worry. I have taken the necks of many instruments over the years for repair/replacement of bodies etc. and none of them came to any harm, after all it's no different to loosening/removing the strings for transportation or a long period of storage (which after all is the recommended action in those events. I generally detune my instruments at least a tone or two if I put them on a 'plane and I have now had a Rickenbacker 4001 in storage with loose strings for more than two years and so far no harm has come to the necks on any of my instruments). The real Gibson LP and the better copies have glued necks so if it's got a separate neck then it's probably a budget Les Paul copy. Sad but true to say, purely in terms of its resale value, it probably isn't worth that much anyway so if you want to refinish it you won't do any real harm since the resale value is pretty modest to start with. Yes, you should be able to take any piece of hardware out of the body though I'd suggest you be careful while doing so since you might end up damaging something otherwise... you will not damage the value of a guitar by taking it to bits and reassembling it properly, but you may well do so if you do not know what you are doing while attempting the process.
As a general pointer for other readers I have found from personal experience that, when it comes to refinishing a guitar to anything even approaching a professional standard, it is just about always much quicker, simpler, and cheaper to sell the guitar that you want to refinish and buy one whose finish you like than it is to attempt to do the job yourself. Sad but true...