Martin – Intonation problem

Nice guitars these, usually much better than this, but the Intonation was rather badly out in this one. There didn’t seem to be any real reason for it so I started off with a new, compensated, bone saddle…It sorted out most of the problem, but not quite the Bass “E”.  Next I widened out the […]

Baby Taylor – action height

I just love these.  I think they’re probably the best value for money you can these days, and absolutely ideal as a starter for a youngster.  This one just has a bit of a high action. The neck set was also just a little high…so a tweek on the truss-rod….The actin at the 12th fret was way […]

Dean Dime – Service and setup

  One for the Metal fans, not quite my cup of tea but still deserves the same time and attention as anything else.  Nothing badly wrong with it mind you, just needs a nip here and a tuck there… The action at the 1st fret was a little high to start with.  Trouble is, with a […]

Custom Build – Finished at last.

At long last.  I got the neck back for that snake-skin guitar.  My wood carver has had problems and hasn’t been able to do the snake head yet; I’m still hopeful but thought I’d get the guitar finished while I wait. The rest is mostly done, although I didn’t clean and oil all the screws […]

Fender Stratocaster – Custom build

A collection of bits and pieces, put together should make a nice guitar… To make it a really great guitar, rather than just an average one I levelled the frets.  Firstly making sure the neck is level.With it nice and flat, grind down the fret tops to a common level….Once levelled each fret needs to […]

Tanglewood Chicago – Service and setup

What a lovely guitar.  I’m not sure if it’s been under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe but it’s not been played for ages and needed a good cleanup and service.The electrics were the biggest problem, scratchy and crackling at best, and plain just not working at worst.To be sure I pulled […]

#Telecaster – Setup and service

A little unusual this one, not the standard Tele’.  It had  few minor problems, nothing too difficult… The first one was a couple of stripped out screws.  It’s easy to do, in this case it’s the screws from the control plate.  I drilled out the old hole and glued in a couple of wooden plugs… Once […]

Epiphone ES339 – Fret dress and setup

A great looking guitar, sadly not playing as well as it should.  In fact they made a bit of a mess of this one, the frets are all over the place..The 11th was the highest but they were all very uneven.  You’d like to think a new guitar would be better than that but, sadly, […]

Squire Jagmaster – New Pickup

A simple way to improve the way your guitar sounds, new pickups… The wiring is actually very simple..What’s not so simple is setting them up afterwards, it’s a bit of an art to get the sounds balanced.  With this one I found the two pickups worked better with the neck pickup flipped round.Looking and sounding […]

Richie Sambora Stratocaster

Nice guitar but It’s got some problems.  Probably been there from new, but now I’m going to put it all right… The first problem is the Intonation.  No matter what the owner did it just didn’t sound right all the way up and down the neck.Looking at the nut the slot for the bass E […]