Telecaster Custom – Rebuild 4th update

This thing is really bugging me now.  Every time I touch it something else doesn’t work! I finally worked out why the neck pickup wasn’t sitting properly…. The cutout for the pickup doesn’t line up exactly with the cavity in the body, there is about a 2mm lip that is just catching the pickup.  Another […]

Telecaster Custom – Rebuild

Got an interesting job lined up.  Build a Telecaster Custom.  The body, neck and pickups are second-hand but everything else will be new. The frets are rather worn so the first job will be to sort those out. I was out of the workshop all morning and had another small job to finish so didn’t manage […]

Epiphone Les Paul – Setup

The first step is to check the amount of curve in the neck.  It should bend up slightly and is measured half way along the neck using a notched straight edge and a feeler gauge. The tension in the strings pulls the head up, increasing the curve.  This tension is balanced against the truss-rod which […]

How Green is your Gibson!

Had an interesting day in the Music Room, Lincoln today.  You can find me there on the last Saturday of each month if you ever want a chat about your Guitar problems. Nothing out of the ordinary to deal with but one guitar for sale caught my eye… I love anything with a Bigsby and […]

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 […]

Fender Flame

Wow, what a fantastic guitar!  I guess I’m lucky, just now and then someone brings in something really nice….  All it needed was a new jack socket so it was an easy fix..

How many strings can you change in a day?

I think I’ve set a personal record, 72 strings in all… A dozen guitars from Lincolnshire Music Services, a quick cleanup, new set of strings and fix a few minor problems.  Most of them had very rusty strings…. and grubby, dry fretboards. The bodies will clean up easily enough…. The fretboard will also clean up […]

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 […]