Ibanez RG – Fret Dress and Setup

I generally rate Ibanez guitars, but this one’s not so good.  It’s got some very uneven frets. The only way to get it playing properly is to dress them all, to get a common level.  It’s always easiest to do that with the neck off the guitar. There we go, taped up and levelled. As […]

Hofner – Restoration

This is a little more of a clean and tidy-up than I’m used to, more of a restoration job really.  It’s not seen any playing action for quite a while, so I’m not sure where I’m starting either? The head had a mod’ some time ago, three extra heads to make it a 9 string.  […]

Gibson – Low Fret

Now this is a lovely guitar, a pity it’s just got that Gibson inconsistency about it.  Some of the frets are rather uneven. The first one’s particularly low. The only way to really sort that lot out is with a fret-dress.  There we go, with the fretboard flat, the nut removed and taped up to […]

Telecaster – New Machine Heads

These were a nice touch I thought, a nice upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with the old heads, but the owner wanted Black ones The new ones are slightly different, and need new holes for the screws.  Making sure they’re all lined up squarely. There we go. Match the guitar quite nicely. To see what else […]

PRS – Rebuild

A bit of a mess this one, but with a bit of effort I think it should be recoverable.. The first fault is rather obvious, it’s just between the nut and the machine heads! To glue it back together was quite simple, the break was along the grain. The trouble is there were some large pieces […]

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 […]