Jazzmaster Build – 1st Update

Started on the Jazzmaster today.  My first intention was to have a look at how the neck fitted, but it’s going to need quite a bit of work. Not fitting very well, or at all actually.  I don’t want to force it or I’ll damage the body and neck. To make things a little more […]

Telecaster Custom – Rebuild final update

The final stage, fit the strings and a setup, should be easy, not with this one…. more problems…. Starting with the neck set, a little large…. so a quick turn of the truss-rod.  So far so good. The action at the first fret is a little high…….. so I cut each nut slot down a […]

USA Fender Telecaster Tuning problems

A really nice Tele’ but the owner’s unhappy as it won’t stay in tune. There is always the problem with the standard Tele’ bridge.  The Intonation is always a compromise so I’m going to change them for a compensated set…   With the strings off I’ve had a good look at the machine heads.  They […]

US Stratocaster Setup

Had a rather nice US Stratocaster on the bench today.  Nothing major, just a clean and setup. I rather like the body, nice paint finish over a very nice piece of wood…. The fretboard was a little grubby… A quick rub down with some steel wool will remove that and polish the frets at the same time.  […]

Les Paul# Copy

I’ve not had one of these Chinese copies before.  I’m all for cheaper copies and cheaper lines.  There’s nothing wrong with Squire, I’ve got an Electromatic Gretsch myself and I even built a “Rickenfaker” but I don’t like labelling things and pretending they are something they are not. However one of my customers took a punt on this […]

When is a speedloader really slow?

The answer is, “When you can’t get the strings anymore”. It’s a great idea, you can change strings in seconds, just hook the string in at the nut and clip the bottom end on the bridge.. It was a fairly simple conversion,  Change the nut for a locking one… and install a set of machine […]

Fender Squire – Fret-dress and new heads

A fairly routine job.  Take a standard Squire Stratocaster and those special touches which will make it so much better.  The biggest setback to a really good playing action are the slightly uneven frets. They are a little worn as well so a fret dress will sort out both problems. The other problem lies in the machine heads.  […]

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 […]

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 […]