First thing, get your guitar on a safe working surface, remember the smallest amount of grit and dirt that your guitar lays on will really scratch it up. I use Fender’s foam setup mats. Custom 24 PRS’s come with locking machine heads. So we start by slackening the strings off with a few turns on each tuning peg.

With the strings slackend, we’ll cut each one to make pulling them through the bridge holes a little easier. Coiled up strings once removed from the tuning posts can be a pain when trying to pull them through the bridge, so I like to cut them.

Now take a small flat head and unclamp each string, turning counter-clockwise. The strings should just pull right out.

Now flip the guitar on it’s side and feed each string out via the six holes on the bridge block. Some guitars don’t have an easy access area cut in the back plate, so you may have to remove the six screws and take it off, in order to get the strings out. This isn’t usually the case though.

With the srings completely off. It’s time for a good clean of the fretboard and body. Not always essential but I like to get the instrument as clean as possible. Sweat, grease and dirt on any guitar is never good, so it’s always worth at least giving a quick wipe down if anything. In this case we’re just going to give the board a good clean. Starting by laying out some protection for the guitar. Paper and low tack masking tape in this case.

With the guitar body protected. Grab a ball of wire wool, this is size 0000, the fine stuff. Starting at the very end of the fretboard, and going with the grain.. Work your way up the neck untill all the dirt and crud has gone, you tend to get a build up of dirt against the frets, so take your time. It’s handy to have an air duster of some kind to blow away all the bits from the steel wool. This is the stuff you don’t want on the guitar body as it can scratch the instrument.

He’s what it’ll look like after the wire wool treatment. All nice and clean, it’ll even polish up your frets to a certain extent. It is important to always work with the grain of the wood. If you go against the grain, you’ll end up with fine score marks on the baord, not good. For more on cleaning frets, please see the Floyd Rose setup tutorial.

If your board looks a little dry, then it’s time for some lemon oil. Get good coverage on the board and leave it to soak in for a few minutes before rubbing it in and wiping away the excess.

Now time to clean the body. Cleaning/polishng varies depending on the type of finish. PRS use a polyester urethane top coat (very hard finish) so in this case I’ll be using ColorTone #4 Polishing Compound, this will give the guitar a nice shine and remove most micro fine scratches. For general cleaning and polishing, Fender make a good 3 bottle kit as do Planet Waves.

Cleaning would come first before polishing to avoid moving dirt and particles around the guitar body. This guitar wasn’t particularly dirty, just needed a minor clean to remove sweat and finger prints, which leave oils on the finish. I simply used naphtha (lighter fluid) to wipe down the body on a 100% cotton cloth. Then followed with the polishing stage, it’s worth using 100% cotton cloths for all your finishing work.

Polish in small circles using a firm amount of pressure until completely gone, then follow with a new dry cloth to help buff up the shine. That’s it for the cleaning process. For a much more indepth article on cleaning, please see the category section on the main page.

Now it’s time to string this beauty up. Before feeding the strings though, it’s worth sighting through each hole to make sure there are no obstructions. Start with the first 3 wound strings and feed each one through the holes on the rear of the guitar body.

Pull the strings all the way through, feeding the ball end of the string into the bridge block, until it wont go any further.

As i’m dealing with locking tuners here, the technique is slightly different from that of non locking tuners. Please see the other tutorials for regular winding on of strings. With these tuners you want to line up the hole of the machine head post with that of the nut slot. With locking tuners you want as little slack wind on as possible.

Feed the string through, and pull it taught. At the same time lock down the string by turning the string clamp clockwise, you just want them finger tight. Over tightening with a flat head may cause damage to the thread.

With the string tightly locked down, start winding on the string such as you would on any non locking system. Turning the machine head counter-clockwise. You may only have to give it a few turns before the string hits pitch. Repeat for every other string, even the plain strings. Tune up and give the strings a good stretch in, by pulling each one slightly all the way up the neck. Then tune again.

Once the guitar is tuned to pitch, You may need to make a neck adjustment. Remove the truss rod cover located on the headstock, and find the correct size wrech. I need to loosen the neck slightly so i’ll be turning counter-clockwise in small increments until i’ve achieved the right feel I’m after. For more information on neck evaluation and adjustment, please see the main category.

With the neck adjusted, it’s now time to set the action, this is the distance from the bottom of each string to the top of the 12th fret. First you’ll need to find the correct size tool for the saddle grub screws. I’ll start with the low E and work from there. If I find it’s buzzing all over the place, then i’ll need to raise the saddle slightly. Remember small adjustments here. You’ll see there’s two grub screws for each saddle, keep them level.

It’s always good to create a nice curve to the saddles to match the radius of the fingerboard. I’m using a steel radius gauge to match PRS’s fingerboard profile, which is a 10inch radius. If you were to have all the saddles level with each other then you’d end up with irregular action on various strings. Finally, Intonnation is the very last step.

Once set up correctly, intonation insures that the instrument plays in tune in every key. Have your guitar in tune, you’ll need an accurate tuner for this stage. With your open note in tune, now play the same string on the 12th fret. If bang on, then leave and move onto the next. If it’s too sharp then you need to lenghen the string, so grab your screwdriver and give a few turns clockwise on the intonation screw, and vise versa, too flat, then turn counter clockwise, and so on.