How to Hang a Guitar on the Wall: A Step-By-Step Guide
You have a prized guitar in your collection that you like to show off more than you play it. Perhaps it’s a Mexican Stratocaster or even a rare rip-off Les Paul straight from Japan. Either way, you’d prefer for this guitar to have a place of honor where you can proudly display it to all your band buddies. You’re thinking your wall is that place, but how do you hang a guitar there?
Here’s how to hang a guitar on the wall:
- Get everything you need, including tools, a level, the mounting screws, and the wall hanger
- Make sure you only hang the guitar on a masonry wall, an external wall, or some other solid wall
- Determine the distance from your mounting block at the very top to the end of your guitar at the bottom so you know the appropriate wall mounting clearance
- Use a wall scanner to prevent finding ugly surprises within or behind the wall
- Mark on the wall where the hanging block should be using a pencil
- Drill the screws of your hanging block in
- Hang your guitar
Yes, those are indeed a lot of steps, but don’t worry. I’ll go over everything with you for the rest of this article, including going step by step you can successfully hang your prized guitar on your wall.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Recommended Tools for Hanging a Guitar on the Wall
First thing’s first, you must have the right tools for the job. Some tools must be ultra-specific if you want things to go smoothly, whereas with others, you can use what you already have around the house.
Here’s the list of tools to gather or buy:
- Screwdriver
- Hammer
- Hammer drill and an array of drill bits
- Pencil
- Level
- Tape measurer
- Wall scanner
- Mounting plugs and screws
- Wall hanger
The wall hanger you choose is of the utmost importance, so make sure you put some time and consideration into your decision. You don’t want to skimp on quality here, as the hanger then might not be sturdy enough to hold your guitar up. You would hate to come home one day to find your precious guitar had crashed to the ground and was damaged because you bought a cheap wall hanger.
String Swing’s guitar hangers are a favorite among guitarists, and they’re an Amazon’s Choice product too. You can get the hangers in natural wood or black walnut to match the décor in the rest of the room.
Gator’s Frameworks Wall-Mounted Guitar Hanger is another renowned pick that’s also an Amazon’s Choice product. It’s made to hang either electric or acoustic guitars, giving you great versatility in your display options.
If you’re looking for yet a third pick, I also quite like Top Stage’s guitar hangers. Made of a sturdy hardwood, you can even use these guitar hangers for showcasing your banjo, ukulele, electric or acoustic guitars, and basses.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Hanging Your Guitar on the Wall
You’ve done your shopping, and now you’re itching to get started. Without further ado then, here are the steps to follow to get your guitar safely and securely mounted to your wall.
Step 1: Determining the Stability of Your Wall
First off, unless you have very generous leasing terms, I wouldn’t recommend you drill holes into a wall in your apartment. Some complexes may allow that, but check with your landlord before you grab the power tools.
Even if you own a home and you can drill any wall you want, that doesn’t mean all your walls are suitable for the job. You want to ensure you have a masonry wall, an external wall, or another solid wall. By tapping the wall and listening for hollow sounds from within, you can determine whether your wall is solid enough to proceed.
Step 2: Gauging the Clearance Between the Guitar and the Mounts
Next, you can begin setting up your guitar for its eventual place on your wall. If you haven’t already, get your guitar mounts adjusted to your guitar’s dimensions. Then put on your guitar. Now, with everything all set up, grab your measuring tape or a ruler.
Track how much distance you have from the mounting block’s top all the way to your guitar’s bottom. This is your clearance.
Take your guitar off the hanger for now and then place the hanger where you envision it going on your wall. Up at your mounting block’s top, take your pencil and put a small line on the wall. Repeat this for the length of the mounting block as well, again for clearance.
Step 3: Using Your Wall Scanner
What’s behind your wall? Since you have no intention of destroying your home to find out, a wall scanner is the next best thing. The Bosch Digital Multi-Scanner on Amazon is especially good for these purposes, as it can detect live wiring, copper pipes, studs, rebar, and wood studs with its laser detection mode.
If there’s anything significant behind your wall, such as wiring or pipework, then you need to find another wall to work with. Drilling into this one could be dangerous.
Step 4: Drilling Holes for the Hanger Blocks
Your wall passes the wall scanner test, so now you can move on. Next, take your guitar wall hanger and line it up on the wall exactly where you want it this time. Take a few minutes to configure this to your liking, then grab your level and ensure the hanger is completely even.
Grab your pencil and make lines where the bottom and top of your mounting block are. You also want to add some little circles to demarcate the location of the screw holes on your guitar hanger.
Plug in your drill and choose your drill bit. You want one that’s as wide as the screw plugs. Begin drilling, using the natural depth of the plugs as your guide. Then, with your hammer, push the included wall hanger plugs into place. They should go in easily if you drilled your wall to the correct width.
If your screws are still a bit loose, you can tighten them with your screwdriver.
Step 5: Hanging Your Guitar
Using your hands, check that all parts of the guitar hanger feel secure. You should have no loose screws, the blocks should be firmly drilled into the wall, and the hanger shouldn’t wobble.
If you’re confident in the job you did, then you can now attach your guitar to your wall hanger. Take a step back and bask in the beauty of your hanging guitar!
Tips for Keeping Your Guitar in Good Condition on the Wall
To wrap up, here are a handful of useful tips to follow as you keep your guitar displayed on your wall for the foreseeable future.
Watch Your Tuning Pegs
This is more of a problem when hanging acoustic guitars than electric guitars because acoustics have tuning pegs on both sides. That said, you do want to make sure that your wall hanger is not in any way colliding or rubbing up against the pegs. Long-term, that could potentially cause damage. If you want to play this guitar again, you don’t want to accidentally degrade its quality, so be careful.
Make Sure You Choose a Coated Wall Hanger
You either want a wall hanger that has parts covered in a soft material or some sort of coating that won’t scratch up your guitar’s finish as you mount it to the wall. Again, this is one of these scenarios where years later, you could decide you want to play your wall-mounted guitar again, only to pull it down and see that the back is scuffed up and ruined. It is avoidable, and it really goes to prove that you must take time when choosing your guitar wall hanger.
Check Your Temperatures
When your guitar is all tucked away in its case, you don’t really have to think about the ambient temperature in your home. Now that your guitar is sitting out in the open, it’s a different story.
You want to do your best to keep the humidity in your home between 50- and 70-degrees Fahrenheit. Is this always easy? Not at all, especially seasonally. Buying a hygrometer tells you how much water vapor is in your home at any one time, aka the humidity levels. The ThermoPro on Amazon is a pretty highly-rated pick if you don’t already own a hygrometer.
If you notice the humidity levels are dropping, which happens in cooler weather, then put a humidifier in the room with your guitar to maintain the humidity to the right levels.
Conclusion
If you’ve mostly retired a guitar from playing but you still quite like the instrument, you don’t have to hide it away in a case forever. Instead, you can put it out for all to see on your wall. With the information and steps laid out in this article, you should be able to get your hands on all the tools you need to wall-mount your guitar! Good luck!
