Burns Marquee – Fret Dress and Setup

A lovely guitar, just not quite as good as you would hope… The nut slots have been widened out and then repaired, rather badly.  The only real way to fix that is to replace the nut. Some of the frets are a little un-even, so I’m going to dress them to get a common level. […]

Epiphone Les Paul – Setup

A nice one this, just needs a little TLC.. Nothing much wrong with it really, just needed a little bit of a clean and oil.. followed by a standard 5 point setup.. 1. The neck set… A little high so a turn on the truss-rod… 2. The action at the 12th fret… a little high […]

Samick – Fret dress and setup

A nice looking guitar, sadly the build quality has rather let it down. The first problem was a dodgy volume control, a little intermittent. I was going to replace it but once I got the wiring out I found a dry joint.  I would say it was an easier fix but the biggest problem is […]

Problematic Gretsch

Had a bit of a problem with a Gretsch this week.  The owner wanted a setup to cure some fret buzzing, sadly it needed a bit more than just that.  The frets were quite uneven so they needed dressing to get the most out of it. Rather uneven frets….Grinding the frets to level the tops…Once […]

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 […]

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 […]