#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 […]

Burns Cobra – Full Setup

What a lovely guitar, just needs a bit of a tweek here and there to bring get it playing to it’s best. Before the setup it just needs a bit of a clean, nothing too bad but while the strings are off, might as well.And a spot of lemon oil to rejuvenate the wood. On with […]

Jackson Custom-build

A recovery of something just about fit for the bin.  A bit of a mess really, but I thought I’d see what I could come up with…. Before:  in need of quite a lot of work… The fretboard was coming off so I helped it along it’s way.  Next I drilled out the old fret […]

Gibson ES 335 – Bone Nut

I Love these guitars.  Their Quality control isn’t great, but there’s nothing that can’t be fixed.  A bone nut will help the sustain and keep it in tune… I’m going to use a large blank….This one is already nice and square which saves a little work.It’s a little thick mind you, so I’ll need to […]

Rickenbacker 360 – Service and Setup

Anyone who knows me will know I’m a Rickenbacker fan, and this is a fantastic example… Nothing much wrong with it, just needs a bit of a clean and setup with new strings..I’ve always though 12 string heads look too large and cluttered but Rickenbacker got it right. With the strings of I first gave […]

Telecaster Build

I’ve just been given a mixed bag of bits, some old some new, to put together…. I think there’s a very nice Telecaster in there somewhere!  But where to start?How about at the top, the machine heads.  First the guides.. they’re rather tight so rather than hammer them in and risk damaging them I pressed them […]

Epiphone Les-Paul – Fret dress and Nut

A nice little guitar.  The trouble is they’re built to a budged, seemingly without much care.  However I’m going to make this one play really nicely.  While I’m at it I’ve been asked to fit a TUSQ nut.  Not something I like to be honest, but I’ll stick it on and see how it works.  […]