An electric guitar consists of several constituent parts. Get to know the most important components:
The body consists of solid wood (solidbody guitars). In exception to that there are also hollow body/semi-acoustic guitars. Beside generating resonancy the body provides the placement for the pickups, the whole electronic and the bridge.
The neck consists out of several components and is in general made out of wood. The headstock carries the machine heads and the fretboard hosts the frets, which are defining the height of the tones. The grabbing hand backs itself against the backside of the neck. The adjustment of the neck can be made with an inside located truss rod, which should be adjustable in two directions.
There are two kinds of neck joints: the bolt-on neck and the glued-in set neck. There are no differences as far as quality is concerned, but these two connection types cause different sound characteristics in addiction to the guitar type they're used with.
The pickups are located on the body in special milling grooves underneath the strings. There are single coil pickups and double coiled (Humbucker) pickups. Humbucker are sounding thick, broad and with more mid range. Single coils have more heights, sound crystal-clear and full of nuances.
With the toggle switch and the volume- and tone-controllers the sound can be adjusted and changed into your favoured style.
The strings of an electric guitar are fixed to the machine heads at the one end and to the solid bridge at the other end of the instrument. But there's also another kind of bridge. A spring-loaded hinged bridge called a tremolo system is used instead, which allows players to "bend" notes or chords down in pitch or perform a vibrato embellishment.
The nut is located at the end of the fretboard, where the neck is connected to the headstock. It leads the strings to the machine heads and it remarks the end of the vibrating area in the same way as the bridge does it at the other side of the instrument. Take care, that the string runs through the notch of the nut without friction. Also look after the right height adjustment of the nut.
Strings are consumables and should be replaced by new ones regularly. It's no problem if strings are flying apart. Your local music dealer will provide you with strings in the right size.
Every string has its own machine head, which keeps it in tension. The harder the tension, the higher the tone. This process is called tuning. You should take care about solid and metal-clad machine heads to prevent the guitar from getting out of tune.