Fender Precision Bass – Setup

A great looking guitar, just not playing at all well.  I didn’t really need to measure the action, more like a step-ladder to reach it! Yeh, that’s possibly the highest action I’ve ever seen, even on a Bass. The bridge saddles were quite low though, and those pickups are rather close to the strings. While […]

Telecaster rebuild

Wow, an interesting mix of old and new.  The neck is genuine Fender, but I don’t know about the rest.  The body’s probably the heaviest Telecaster I’ve ever come across. I’m going to fit the neck to a new body with a mix of old and new hardware. The first stage is to sort out the […]

Tokai – New Pickups

A rather interesting looking guitar. The owner’s looking for an upgrade, so out with the old.. and in with the new..New Pots, Pickups and Switch etc…. The screws on the bridge needed a bit of a clean while I was at it….. The fretboard also needed a bit of a clean…. and oil… There was […]

Gibson SG – Fret Dress and setup

I rather fancy one of these, This one needed quite a bit of sorting out though… The string break angle over the bridge looks a little extreme to me, but I can sort that out when I get it back together and complete the setup. The frets have got some worn spots…. and are a […]

Unknown Bass – re-wire

I’ve never been sure exactly what this is, it’s a bitsa’ (bitsa’ this and bitsa’ that)  It’s not been working properly lately, the electrics have been playing up so I’m going to replace the pots’ and possibly the switch. just a direct swap, one for one. While I’m at it, I drilled out and plugged […]

Innes Sibun “Strat”

What a beautiful guitar. There are lots of Strats’ out there so it takes something out of the ordinary to stand out, and this certainly does that. It’s got just one slight flaw, some of the frets are just a little un-even. I’ve seen worse, but to get it playing really nicely they need to […]

Gibson Les-Paul – Re-wire

Gibson seem to be sorting themselves out.  This 2016 Les Paul’s lovely.  The owner has changed over the pickups but wants some fancy wiring options. The first thing is to remove the Gibson modular electronics package with it’s push/pull pots’. I much prefer push/push pots’, I sometimes find it difficult to grip the knobs and pull […]

Ibanez – Setup

Here’s a lovely guitar, just not behaving properly, needs a little work. The first thing is the bridge. The trouble with the wooden bridge is that intonation is always a bit of a compromise. The “Tune-o-matic” option means each string can be adjusted separately.  Since it’s a floating bridge the tape is there just so […]

Partial Re-Fret

This one’s seen some action, mostly around the open chords.  The first 3 frets are really worn but the rest are probably OK.  If I file them all down to the level of the grooves up there, then there’ll be practically nothing left! Off with the strings and nut and out with the first 3 […]

Classical Guitar – Reduced Action Height

Classical, nylon strung guitars tend to have a higher action but this one was very high.  The first thing was to flatten out the neck a little… That helped a little. but not enough.  So I took out the bridge saddle and ground it down a little. finishing it off by hand to make sure […]