by Scott VanderWall.

Scott VanderWall with rare Martin OM-45 Deluxe

As a blooming guitar player growing up in the '80s in a small west Michigan town, mostly relying on tourism for visitors, there weren't many qualified guitar techs or repairmen available, especially for guitars with a floating tremolo. So, as a youth, when I needed my guitars tweaked, set up, modified or repaired, it was a difficult journey and a costly one as well.

It didn't take long for me to realize that since I didn't have much cash flow and needed my guitars worked on, I had better learn to work on them myself.

My first attempt to set up a guitar was a nightmare, I was so excited and determined to teach myself how to do this, I tore right into it and pulled off the trem, the springs the saddles.... everything. I even disassembled the saddle!

I was now in hot water- boiling in fact. I had no idea what I was doing.

After several hours, I managed to get the bridge put back together and reinstalled on my guitar. After over a week of much frustration with the action and intonation and several adjustments, I got that guitar playing like I wanted. This was the the catalyst of my guitar repair focus. I soon followed my first debacle by tearing apart every guitar I owned, four to be exact, and performed similar set ups.

I was now a self-sustaining guitar player! As word got out on my abilities to tweak and set up guitars, friends would bring their guitars to me to set up. As time went by, people I didn't know were asking me to work on their guitars. I obliged them and was getting better and better all the time. And as more new people came, new requests came, like nut work, bridge work, electronics, fretwork and other mods.

I started buying broken instruments from pawn shops just to work on them and practice. Eventually I was able to perfect my abilities.

Enter 1994. I moved to Houston, Texas, where I knew no one. I started working in construction and that allowed me to meet a lot of people. Many of them played guitars- once the word got out that I did repairs, I was getting all kinds of requests for guitar repair work.

So, I opened up my own shop, Vwall Guitars, back in 1997. It's a small place that specializes in guitar repair and sales for many major guitar and effect manufacturers. It didn't take long before I was asked by a large chain music store to get certified to perform Ibanez warranty guitar repair for them and their customers.

They kindly wrote a letter of recommendation and after qualifying, I became an Ibanez tech and have worked on them ever since. Other certifications and qualifications followed including Fender, Jackson, Charvel, Guild, Gretsch, Benedetto, Taylor, BC Rich, Squire, Washburn, Alvarez, Danelectro, and many more.

With Vwall online and the budding growth of the Internet, it didn't take long for guitar players around the globe to learn of Vwall Guitars. I have clients who send me guitars from other states and countries to do the full spectrum of repair work from basic set ups to fretwork and warranty repair. It's always a pleasure to be honored enough for another musician to have the trust to send off their guitar to a total stranger and have work performed on it.

Today, I spend most of my time handling repairs and running VwallGuitars.com. I help moderate a couple guitar forums and spend a lot of that time answering tech questions, retrofit questions and being asked for advice on guitar repair. It's always a pleasure to enlighten other players with tech tips and to talk about guitars and offer words of encouragement.

I don't mind sharing what I've learned. Believe it or not, most guitar techs covet what they've learned. Their lips get sealed tight when I have asked questions along my guitar repair journey. But for me, the guitar repair business isn't covetous. If a player actually spends the time to get to know his or her instrument and puts the effort into learning, then that's a great thing. Help is good!

Having been working on guitars for over 23 years now, I am confident in my abilities to perform guitar repair on most any stringed instrument including guitars, basses, banjos, violins, mandolins and others. I've even been asked to work on some keyboards.

One thing I can't stress enough to other aspiring techs or individuals is if the scope of work is beyond your understanding or abilites, do not attempt it. Please take it to a professional for repair!

To this day, there are some aspects of guitar repair that I just never get requests for like resetting necks on acoustic guitars. Since I don't get that sort of work, I haven't perfected that skill. I have reset necks in the past, but I'm fully aware of the do's and don'ts. It would be a disservice to my clients to handle these repair jobs, so I send them to a more qualified repair shop or I'll contract out the work for them.

I do the same with refinish workwork as well - I'm a guitar tech and repairman, not a painter!

If I get enough ultra specialty work requests such as resetting, set necks or neck through guitars, I will re-hone my skills in that area. If there is something else that I am unfamiliar with, I will learn how to work on it.

I strongly suggest you take this into consideration before attempting any heavy modding on your instrument.

That's enough about me for now. I look forward to seeing you all in our new Modern Guitars Tech Talk column - it's as much yours as it is mine! We will be addressing several topics of interest to the guitar player, from the basics that new players need to know to more complex and nuanced work to meet the needs of the most critical expert players.

And be sure to take full advantage of our Q & A! I may not be able to get to all of your questions, but I'll do my best to answer as many as I can.

Please send your guitar tech questions to: questions@modernguitars.com.

Until then, see you around the web and right here at Modern Guitars magazine.