There wasn’t much really wrong with this one, it’s just been tucked away and neglected for a good few years. The fretboard was rather caked in several years worth of goop. It was rather thick and dry so I very gently used a cabinet scraper. Very important not to scrape too hard, to only remove […]
Tag: Guitar Repair
Tanglewood – Deep Clean and Setup
Nothing much fundamentally wrong with this one, it’s just in need of a thorough clean and setup. It’s not been used for quite some time but I believe it has significant sentimental value. The fretboard and frets were rather dirty, as was the rest of the guitar. A good scrub with 0000 grade steel wool […]
Epiphone ES335 – Neck Repair
A rather nasty break this one. It’s split along the grain though, so it’s repairable. It’s split into several parts so I need to deal with those loose parts first. Before gluing anything I removed any loose small chips that will get in the way of the head fitting closely back together. Then inject slightly […]
Fender Jazz Bass – Replacement Neck
A strange one this, the top of the neck has quite a crack in it. I tried to glue and clamp it but the crack must go right through. When I tried to tighten the truss-rod it didn’t pull the neck into shape, it’s just opening up the split. Sadly it’s beyond my skills to […]
Gibson Les Paul – Pickup and electrics upgrade
There are a lot of after-market pickups out there which can represent a good upgrade. While I was at that with this guitar the owner also wanted me to remove the modern printed circuit board and replace it with traditional potentiometers and capacitors, he felt they would be more reliable in the long run. The […]
Ibanez RG – Fret Dress
This a rather unusual one, Ibanez guitars are normally a lot better than this… Having set it up to a normal standard it was choking out badly at the first fret. Turns out the first fret is really low. The only way to dial that problem out would be to put in a rather excessive […]
Flying V – Hard Landing
They say flying is easy, it’s the landing that can bight! Well this Flying V may have flown well but it must have been a hard landing! I’m not sure what happened but the neck pocket has been split along the line of the neck. It should have been quite simple. I opened up […]
Fender Strat – Not holding tune
This really is a beautiful guitar. It’s been through my workshop before but it’s not behaving as well as you would like with a guitar at this level. It doesn’t seem to want to hold it’s tuning very well. I think it’s the usual problem but the owner assures me that he never uses the […]
PRS – Fret Dress and Setup
I can’t say I’ve ever really been a fan of PRS Guitars, they’re normally better than this one though. This one has some rather uneven frets so it’s never going to play well as it is. A fret-dress and a setup will sort that lot out though. Using a Fret Rocker over 3 frets there […]
What are the best replacement pickups?
A question I often get asked: What are the best replacement guitar pickups available to upgrade my Guitar? Quite simple: Radioshop Pickups. They make a fantastic range of hand wound pickups and come right at the top of my list of upgrades… I’ve just fitted a pair of P90s to an Epiphone Casino. Rather than […]