Haywire 8-Point Gig-Ready Process
Guitar purchase “off the rack” can be a mine field, consider "custom" versus "pre-fab" electric guitars.

I love guitars, I like great tone, the way it feels in my hands, and the way that I can make a guitar sound "right" for any kind of music that I play. Whether it's jazz, blues, country, hard rock, R&B leads, guitar chords, or just working on guitar tabs, all it takes is a flip of a switch, some prep, a couple twists of the knobs, neck alignment and I'm right where I need to be. I've bought a lot of guitars over the years, and discovered that taking that beautiful new Strat or Tele guitar out of the box was always just the first step in finding the guitar that fit in my hands the way that I imagined that it would when it first caught my eye, but there's nothing like a new electric guitar with a proper set up!

After a close inspection I found that my new guitar wouldn't be quite gig ready until I did all of the little subtle tweaks, repairs and modifications that would make it play just the way I wanted it to when I got it out onto the gig. I'd dress the frets, get the intonation just right, tweak the pick-ups, customize the configuration a bit, and before you know it, I'd be playing a guitar that felt like it was made to be in my hands. Playing music is always fun, but when I'm on the gig with a guitar that feels just right ... it's just pure guitar joy.

After a while I thought; “Wouldn't it be great to be able to buy a guitar that felt gig ready right out of the box?" As wonderful as that idea may seem, in reality it’s almost impossible to pick up a guitar in a music store “off the rack” and have it play right. It just doesn’t happen.

There are many things that need to be done to “prep” the guitar before it’s ready to play. At Haywire Custom Guitars we recommend and perform all of the following in prep for a guitar purchase before it leaves the bench at the workshop.

For our purposes here I will focus only on electric instruments for now. First, let me pose a question to the beginning through the advanced guitarist. What Is Guitar Intonation and why is it important? Do you know?

Intonation is the accuracy in which an electric guitar or bass can produce a fretted note and the most important issue with any instrument. Setting the intonation on a guitar is the act of adjusting the length of the strings (by moving the bridge saddles) to compensate for the thickness of the string and the stretching of a string due to pushing it down to the fret board to produce a note.

To adjust the intonation of your guitar or bass guitar, you move the bridge saddles toward or away from the fret board until the 12th fret note and its harmonic are equal in pitch to the same open-string note, which are exactly one octave apart. Accurate intonation is critical to pitch quality. Pitch quality is essential to "in tune" playing. Poor pitch quality="out of tune" notes which in turn = poor musical presentation. Wouldn't you want to present your musical talents in the best way possible? Of course, you do.

Now, it is not necessary for a guitar player to know this at all. It is essential however that the guitar possess this quality and maintain as close to perfect intonation as possible. Buying on looks alone can be very disappointing. If however, you like an instrument for the looks but realize that you will need to have it worked on to get it playable then that is a savvy notion. It's best to speak to a Luthier or guitar builder previous to any purchase. It's akin to asking a mechanic which car he would recommend-before you walk into the show room. In this way you can benefit from his first hand knowledge and experience and not have to go it alone. After all the service mechanic sees the cars that breakdown more often than you or the salesmen do.

Haywire Custom Guitars has developed an 8-point "Gig-Ready guitar process that ensures all Haywire guitars are ready to rock from day one. With many years of development and guitar set-up experience, we pride ourselves in building you a guitar that is just right for you at prices way below market.

We offer a wide choice of body colors, hardware, and pickups to make your Haywire guitar a true custom. At Haywire Custom Guitars, we're making satisfied guitarists one guitar at a time.

Point 1:  4-axis alignment of the guitar neck
Each guitar neck is checked and adjusted to be it is true and straight to ensure proper alignment on all axis. This step ensures proper action and allows for more accurate and easier guitar tuning, playing and set-up in the following steps.

Point 2:   Inspect and lube the guitar tuning gears
Before installing the guitar tuning gears, each one is checked thoroughly. Each tuning gear is adjusted so that there is no play in the mechanism. They are then lubricated to insure smooth and even movement to make your guitar tune accurately.

Point 3:  Potting the guitar pickups
We dip the pickups in hot wax to reduce squeal and unwanted guitar feedback.

Point 4:  Prep the guitar body
Upon installing the guitar electronic components, great care is taken to ensure that all wires are properly routed, spaced, and grounded to ensure years of trouble free service with your guitar.

Point 5:   Level and polish the frets
This insures that all of the guitar frets are level, eliminating any possibility of fret buzz due to unevenness.

Point 6:  Radius the guitar strings
Most guitar necks have a contour over the top of the neck. We adjust the strings to make sure the height of each string follows the contour of the guitar neck.

Point 7:  Adjusting the overall guitar string height and the action
Once we set the contour and radius of the guitar strings, it’s time to adjust the overall height of the strings from the top of the frets to the bottom of the guitar strings.

Point 8:  Set the guitar intonation
This step is done twice. The intonation is set two times with a 24 hour "seat-in" period in between to allow the guitar to properly re-seat to the new adjustments