Welcome to Guitar Mod Lab. Start here to understand how the community works, choose your first project and avoid turning a perfectly functional guitar into expensive firewood. You’ll find the basics, a simple path through the courses and a few ground rules for getting useful feedback.

A practical guide to the tools, parts, materials and resources worth having around before you start modifying guitars. Focused on useful basics, affordable options and avoiding the mountain of specialised gear the internet insists you urgently need.

Take one ordinary guitar and make it yours. The Boring Guitar Rescue Challenge is about making a simple, meaningful change to a guitar or bass that feels a little too standard. Change the pickguard, knobs, pickup covers, hardware, electronics, finish or anything else that gives it more personality. Share your before photo, what you changed, what it cost and the finished result. It doesn’t need to be expensive, complicated or sensible. It just needs to be more you than when you started.

Easy, low-risk ways to change the look, feel and personality of a guitar. Explore pickguards, knobs, tuners, bridges, cosmetic changes and other straightforward upgrades that can make a surprisingly big difference without requiring major surgery.

Make the guitar actually feel like yours. Explore colour combinations, refinishing ideas, visual themes, custom parts and ways to create a coherent look instead of randomly bolting on shiny objects until the instrument resembles a discount spaceship.

Two ways to deal with age and wear: create it deliberately or repair it carefully. Learn practical approaches to relicing, ageing, cleaning and restoring instruments.

Advanced Customisation For bigger projects and more ambitious transformations. Plan major visual changes, unusual parts, body modifications and full custom builds with more attention to sequencing, risk and design. This is where simple mods start becoming proper projects.

Customise the other big rectangle in the room. Grille cloth, knobs, badges, cabinets and cosmetic amp changes, while leaving dangerous high-voltage work to people who enjoy remaining alive.