9 Tips for Buying a Used Electric Guitar

9 Tips for Buying a Used Electric Guitar

Here is a buyer’s guide for second-hand guitars. If you are in the market or found a used guitar that you can’t live without from a shop or a private seller, then here are some tips to make sure you are getting a good instrument.

There are also a lot of other things I could cover concerning copies of expensive guitars and that kind of stuff, but I’m not going to get into that in this article. This will be a hardware overview of what to look for when buying a used instrument… and also things to totally avoid if the guitar meets these criteria.

Want to learn guitar? You might consider Fender’s own Fender Play step-by-step online lessons.

Make sure you like the sound of the guitar

Don’t just buy it and hope for the best! I like to take a little battery-powered guitar amp, tuner, and guitar cable so I am not at the mercy of the seller having them available.

The choke test

Another thing I like to do is to see if I can do a 2 fret bend on the majority of the strings all the way up the guitar. I do this all the way up on most of the strings from the E to the G just to make sure there are no definitive dead spots. It could mean that the neck is out of alignment, has a bow in it, the frets are worn, the nut is not cut properly. If it plays properly and bends all the way up and down the fretboard, then that is generally a good sign.

The jack wiggle test

This not a huge problem, but sometimes the jacks can be faulty on a guitar. If you fully plug the cable in and then move the cable around a little while plugged into an amp sometimes they will make all sorts of noise. This isn’t a huge deal. It could be just a bad solder joint, worn or bent connectors, or a crappy jack. These are easy and relatively inexpensive to fix. Just be sure the jack holds the cable securely so it doesn’t fall out and that it doesn’t make noise when you touch it.  A bad jack by itself is generally not a deal-breaker. You can pick up a replacement jack for a couple of dollars and replace it easily.

The Hardware test

Next test all of the hardware on the guitar. Things to check:

• Volume and Tone controls
  Make sure that they work and don’t scratch too badly, make noise, or drop out. Tap them because sometimes it isn’t a problem with the rolling of the pot, but rather, the sound totally cuts out. Sometimes it can be the wiring, but it is usually the potentiometers (pots). Depending on how the guitar is put together and if you are comfortable soldering, they may be easy replace… or not.
• Switches
  Verify that they work… that they perform whatever function they are supposed to and that they don’t make noise in any position or when the switch is being flipped. As with the volume and tone controls, switches may be cheap and easy to replace… or they may be a real bear to get to.
  
• Tuners
  Make sure none of them are severely bent or loose. Tune the guitar and see how they feel. Is there any slop in the tuning gears? Do a few bends and see if the tuners slip or if the guitar stays in tune. It’s not the end of the world if a tuner has been replaced… or needs replaced. You want tuners that are going to be reliable on a guitar. There isn’t much that is worse then tuning your guitar, then when you start playing it quickly goes out of tune.
  

Play a chord

Tune the guitar then play a chord. If the chord sounds weird, then something is not right with the guitar. If the chord sounds right, that is a great sign that the guitar is good to go. If the chord sounds off and you check your tuning and you are in tune, then there is something severely wrong with the nut, or maybe the intonation is out. That’s not a huge thing if it is the intonation. It just means that you need to adjust the bridge. But if the nut isn’t cut correctly, then it may sound fine when tuning the open strings, but then not sound right when you play a chord. This can happen with cheap or even more expensive guitars that have bad nuts from the factory. Just make sure that if you play a chord after tuning the guitar and it all sounds good, then it is good. If it doesn’t, then stay away from it.

Check the pickups

This may not be a huge big deal, but definitely check out what type of pickups the guitar has. Ask the seller if it has been modded, and if it has, what kind of pickups are currently installed. There are lots of sellers online where you can buy individual pickups, pickup sets, or even “fully loaded” pickguards that have the pickups and maybe even the controls already installed, making it easy for folks to swap them out. This isn’t necessarily a big deal. If you like the sound of the guitar, then it makes no difference. Just get it anyway. But if you are a huge pickup nerd and you want a specific type of pickups, then double-check to make sure you know what you are getting. The seller might even let you take off the plastic and verify what is under there. It is usually less likely that people have modded higher end guitars. But with guitars where the pickups are mounted to a removable pickguard, like Strats and Teles, people like to put in different pickups to get a particular type of sound and they sell off the old pickups.

Check the serial number

There are plenty of places online where you can type in the serial number and verify that the info presented matches what the seller says about the guitar. There are really two issues you are hoping to avoid:

• Fakes
  Especially if you are buying a more expensive guitar like a USA Gibson or USA Fender, then you should be on the lookout for fakes. It used to be pretty easy to spot a fake, but they are getting harder to spot.
• Stolen
  Also make sure the serial number isn’t scratched off or obscured… which might be a hint that it was stolen.

Distortion check

If you play with gain, then you will want to plug in the guitar and put it on a distortion channel to see if any of the pickups squeal. This could be a sign that some of the pickups are not waxed and they are highly micrphonic. If you are a high-gain player and you get on the bridge pickup and it makes a high pitch squeal, then don’t buy the guitar. This isn’t just a proximity to the amp thing. Older more vintage wound pickups can squeal a lot. Modern pickups can squeal a lot of they are not waxed properly. If you are a high gain player, then play it at high gain to verify that the guitar doesn’t have any of these inherent problems with poorly designed or poorly made pickups, or pickups that aren’t designed to be used for your type of sound. Vintage pickups sound great for a particular type of sound… but not if you are a Metal guy.

Worn Frets

A little bit of wear is Ok. However, if you look at the frets and see big indentations under the strings, or the frets are way too low to the fretboard, then this is a sign that the guitar has been played a LOT and that a fret replacement job is needed. Depending on where you live, refretting the guitar could cost a small fortune.

Warped neck

This I pretty easy to get a quick look down the neck of the guitar and see if the fretboard wood lines up exactly with the strings. As long as the strings aren’t actually touching any frets, then they should be perfectly straight. So, any big bends or twists in the neck should be easy to spot. A little bow forward or aft in the neck may not be a deal-breaker if it can be corrected by adjusting the truss rod. But lateral neck bend (side to side) or twist in the neck is a sure sign that you should walk away.

Truss rod tap check

An odd test I’ve heard of that can be really useful is to lightly bang the back of the neck with your palm (just tap it) and listen for a rattle or buzz in the neck where the truss rod isn’t connected properly. That could be evidence that if you ever need to adjust the neck, the truss rod won’t grab when you try to loosen or tighten it. It is unlikely that this would be an issue, as a loose truss rod would likely result in a bad neck bow in one direction or the other. So, if the guitar plays well, then it is likely fine.

What did I miss?

Please leave a comment if I’ve missed anything on the what to look for or what to avoid list when buying a used instrument

 

via Gear Report at https://gear-report.com