Hands-On Guitar Repair School Curriculum

Eight to Ten Weeks of Hands-On Guitar Repair Training

Guitar Tech Academy is an eight-week, hands-on guitar repair program taught inside a working five-star repair shop. Students learn professional guitar setup, fretwork, electronics, diagnosis, customer intake, and practical shop procedures while working on real instruments with real problems.

After completing the eight-week instructional program, students may remain for two additional weeks at no extra charge. These optional practice weeks help students reinforce their skills, improve efficiency, and gain confidence working more independently.

Note: The subjects listed in the curriculum below are not necessarily in the order they are taught.

Here’s a link to our actual courses, sections and lessons.

1. Professional Customer Take-In

• Creating a professional first impression
• Inspecting the instrument with the customer present
• Recognizing obvious setup, fret, hardware, structural, and electronic concerns
• Getting customer decisions and approvals in advance for issues that may be discovered during the work
• Documenting pre-existing condition and customer instructions
• Determining the appropriate service and setting expectations
• Completing the take-in and moving the instrument into shop workflow

2. Guitar Construction and Function

• Major components of acoustic and electric guitars
• How neck relief, action, fret condition, nut height, and bridge adjustment interact
• Scale length, fret placement, and intonation
• Common neck, body, bridge, and hardware designs
• Differences among Fender-style, Gibson-style, acoustic, bass, and other common instruments
• How improper neck angle can cause hard to diagnose fret issues

4. Professional Guitar Setup

• Establishing playing-condition targets
• Measuring and adjusting neck relief
• Measuring and adjusting nut slots
• Setting action
• Adjusting bridge and saddle height
• Matching bridge setup to fingerboard radius
• Setting intonation
• Adjusting pickup height
• Tremolo setup and balancing
• Tuning stability
• Final play testing and quality control
• Setups for different playing styles and customer preferences

6. Fretwork

This is one of the most misunderstood topics in guitar repair

• Fret inspection and measurement
• Identifying high, loose, worn, and uneven frets
• Determining whether a guitar needs spot leveling, a complete level and crown, or a refret
• Securing loose frets
• Fret leveling
• Maintaining or establishing fingerboard radius
• Fret crowning
• Fret-end dressing
• Progressive polishing
• Diagnosing buzz after fretwork
• Final setup and quality-control procedures

8. Guitar Electronics

• Basic electrical principles
• Pickup, potentiometer, switch, jack, and capacitor functions
• Using a multimeter for troubleshooting
• Diagnosing no-output, intermittent-output, hum, crackle, and grounding problems
• Soldering technique
• Replacing output jacks, pots, switches, and pickups
• Reading common guitar wiring diagrams
• Shielding and grounding
• Testing completed repairs

10. Tools, Measurement, and Shop Methods

• Selecting and maintaining guitar repair tools
• Precision measuring tools
• Establishing reference measurements
• Using repeatable procedures that ensure consistency
• Work documentation sequence
• Controlling tolerances
• Protecting instruments while they are being serviced
• Organizing a functional repair bench
• Tool safety and instrument safety

12. Practical Bench Work

GTA is not simply classroom instruction. Students –

• Practice procedures under direct supervision
• Work on multiple guitar types
• Diagnose complete instruments rather than only performing isolated exercises
• Repeat procedures until they can achieve consistent results
• Complete setup and repair work from intake through final quality control
• Learn inside an operating guitar repair business

Does this curriculum cover everything that is taught?

No. A written curriculum cannot list every issue that may arise during eight to ten weeks inside a shop handling approximately 150 instruments per month. Students are exposed to real repair-shop problems and situations that cannot always be predicted or placed on a syllabus.

Does Guitar Tech Academy teach complete guitar setups?

Absolutely. Everything that can affect the player’s experience. And not just the setup that the instrument came in for – what good is a setup if the electronics don’t work, or the fretwork is bad?

Is fret leveling and crowning included?

In depth – as well as total refrets.  You’ll learn how to handle loose frets before leveling. Many shops and schools miss this step, which will likely lead to bad fret jobs.

Does the course cover acoustic and electric guitars?

Yes – but not just guitars. You’ll work on bass guitars, ukuleles, banjos and even violins.

Do students work on real customer instruments?

At first, students mostly work on guitars we’ve purchased from customers.  In the later weeks, you’ll work on actual customer guitars.

Is guitar electronics included?

Of course. We’ve had students who seemed afraid of electrical work. Students who swore they could never learn to solder. One such recent grad texted me yesterday proud that another tech with 20 years of experience had asked him for help wiring an S1 switch, and the grad quickly completed the job.

Is this an online guitar repair course?

No. You learn in-shop, hands-on, by actually doing the work.  We do have online lessons that help to reinforce what you’ve learned or prepare you for what the next day will bring. These are to assist, not replace learning. Those who have difficulty reading, etc., will not be greatly affected by skipping the online lessons.

What tools are provided?

Students are provided all the tools they need for our course. In fact, we ask that you do not bring your own tools.

What skills will I have after completing the program?

You should have all the skills you need to handle the common issues, the profitable jobs, that you’ll see while running your own shop or while on the job elsewhere.  We offer post-graduation support through Guitars Done Right – a membership program for our guitar tech grads.  This support covers tech issues, business issues and marketing issues – even website issues!

Is Guitar Tech Academy a luthier school?

If we define “luthier” as one who builds guitars, repairs internal bracing of acoustic guitars, wood structure issues, and does paint and finish work on guitars – then no. The demand for that type of work is a fraction of what the typical guitar repair shop gets and the profitability is much less than general repairs and setups.

Students learn common structural repairs including headstock breaks, acoustic bridge replacement, bridge plate replacement, accessible bracing repairs, and minor binding work. More extensive internal bracing, body cracks, major routing, and other highly specialized structural repairs are referred to a specialist.