January Sales

Since I was in London for a few days over Christmas I thought I would see if I could find anything interesting in Tin Pan Alley, any bargains in the January Sales!  I used to love the place as you never quite knew what you would find, lots of old bits and pieces, a neck here or […]

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all out there in Guitar-land….. At least I managed to clear the bench for Christmas, so I don’t have any customers banging on my door, needing their instruments back for the holiday.  Now I can put my feet up for a rest. Speaking of Christmas though. If any of you should get anything […]

5 String Telecaster

  The first thing I did was to have a good look at the Guitar.  Since the owner wants a low action the question is how accurately are the frets set, any high frets will cause buzzing when the action is lowered.  I’m pleased to say it’s pretty good so I won’t need any work […]

Maverick, fret-dress and setup

I don’t think I’ve had one of these on the bench before.  Not quite my cup of tea but different.  It’s obviously had a lot of use and needs a spot of TLC.  The frets are a little worn and the fret-board has several years worth of goop on it.  There were also a couple of high […]

Encore Acoustic setup

As a cheaper guitars go these Encores are not bad.  This one just needs a bit of a clean and setup. The action at the first fret is OK…. but the set in the neck is huge, you could drive a coach and horses under there!! The action at the 12th fret is also huge.  […]

More George Martin than George Harrison!

Been working on an interesting project with some friends.  My web-guru Clive, from Octagon technology http://www.octagontech.com/ and Lizzie, from Develop and Promote http://www.developandpromote.co.uk/ asked me if I could help them record a pod-cast. It’s a very long time since I was in a recording studio but I’ve got some gear so offered my services.  Like most people I […]

Very Green Ibanez!

Quite a long job this one, been on the go for a couple of weeks.  The customer wanted a really nice setup, which really ment a fret dress before he had the body re-painted.  I though it was a bit daft to do the setup twice so ended up pulling it apart and doing the […]

Framus

Now and again something really nice comes across the bench.  This week it was an old Framus.  There was nothing really wrong with it, it just needed a good clean and polish.  I don’t know when it was built but I could picture it in the hands of a very young John Lennon….

Fretless Hofner

Well it was fretless when I started! Someone elses project, already started, so all I’ve been handed is a body and neck. The first stage of the project is to fit new frets.  So, step one, make sure the fret-board is nice and level.  There are a couple of deep points but it’s mostly in good condition. […]

Custom Build 4th update

Things have been a little quiet in the workshop this week, a couple of minor jobs but nothing worth putting on the blog. I did find some time to finally wire in the custom job I’ve been working on in my spare time, I just haven’t had much spare time lately. I’m not so keen […]