WD-40. Miracle worker. (and no, I'm not endorsed by WD-40)

One of my absolute favourite things to use around the shop is WD-40, also commonly called (by the dyslexic, I suppose) DW-40. It's a miracle-product and does way more than just repel water (yes, it really is simply a water-repellent). Here's what I (and my esteemed colleagues) use it for:

• Cleaning old sticker residue: Sometimes a guitar has been hanging on the wall in the store for quite a while and the price tag looks all ratty and, I'm convinced, does nothing to make the guitar more appealing to a customer. So when I get it on my workbench, I like to remove the old sticker and apply a new one. However, as is the case with most stickers, there's a sticky mess left behind and nothing takes it off better than WD-40! Spray a bit on, let it soak in for 30 seconds to a minute, and then use something like a piece of wood with a good angle on it (wood won't leave scratches) to scrape it off. You can then use a piece of toilet paper, or whatever to wipe it clean. Keep using WD-40 until all glue is gone. (PS this is great for removing stickers of bands you no longer like...)

Why your cheap guitar sucks.

No offense, but it probably does. I'm not a guitar snob, I'm informed, and you could be too!

Ever walk into a guitar shop and wonder what the difference is between Gibson and Epiphone, Fender and Squier, ESP and LTD? Let me tell you, there are *tons* of differences. Without naming any names, this is how it works:

Terminology Fail: Input Jack

It's always good to be able to tell your face from your...ah, *other* end, and it's equally important to be able to differentiate an output from an input. On a guitar, the sound goes out, so it's an output jack. End of story. Anyone who calls it an input jack is wrong and should be corrected. What happens when your amp or effects pedal or mixer needs repair and you say "please fix the input jack", when it's really the output jack that is defective? Won't you look like a fool!

Coloured strings, anyone?

Actual customer guitar (and where did she even get these strings??):







Wowee...what do you think of them?

Colour Me Madd

Ok, Fender, we know you invented a couple of the world's most infamous and widely-used guitars and basses, but you don't have to reinvent *everything*. What I'm referring to is string ball-end colour-coding. Dean Markley all have black ball-ends, Ernie Ball are gold, and D'Addario have a very specific colour system. For those of us in the business of changing strings loads of times a day, we depend on the colour system to guide us because, in the end, it's a lot quicker to remember 6 colours in order than to have to refer to packaging for the right sequence.

That being said, Fender (who only recently joined the colour-coding game) went ahead and put a wrench in the works. D'Addario's gold-red-black-green-purple-silver (an order we got used to and relied on) becomes Fender's confusing gold-red-silver-green-yellow-blue.
Not a big deal, you say? Well, envision a seamstress whose sewing machine needles are colour-coded. If one company decides to mess up the colours and go with their own (for the sake of originality, or whatever), it's disastrous! Ok, maybe it's not so bad in guitar-land, but it's annoying, no?