Jay Turser – Fret dress and bone nut

Got handed this one with a “What can you do with this”?  Mainly it’s just missing a nut and one of the bridge pins.  The frets are a little worn as well so I’m going to give them a dress as well. It’s seen a lot of action around those open chords.. Once they’re level, […]

Gibson ES335 – Setup

I do like the different, and this one really is that!  a touch of 1970’s Glam Rock I think… The first problem is the bridge, most of the saddle screws are rusted solid and one’s missing. Not difficult, just time consuming.  Take each screw out and clean it with a wire brush on a dremel, […]

Squire Start’ – Custom Pickups

Here’s a great way to improve our guitar.  Rather than trade it in for an upgrade how about changing the pickups?  These should sound good. About the only bits that I’m going to keep are the volume pot and the pickup switch. That’s the new wiring.  I’ve added push/push pots on each of the tone […]

Ovation – Electric Pickup

These are nice.  The owner wanted an electric pickup fitted. The usual place for the jack socket is to combine it with the strap button.  Unfortunately I don’t think if I extend the hole it’ll be strong enough. So I’m going to use a standard jack socket mounted elsewhere. The pickup is actually a little […]

Fender Acoustic – Setup with lower action

There’s nothing worse than trying to learn the guitar on one that’s really hard to play!  The action on this one was very high which is only ever going to give you sore fingers! Measuring up at the 12th fret the action’s way too high… The frets are a little uneven so I’ll never be […]

Santa Cruz – Setup and action lower

What a beautiful Guitar.  Really nicely made, but with a rather high action. The neck set was about right, so nothing I can do there. The frets are nice and even so I can afford to bring the action down by quite a bit. Up at the 12th fret the action is much too high… […]

Freshman – Setup and lower action

This is another nice one.  I’m not a great fan of Freshman but this one feels right. Nothing much wrong, just a little high in the action.  The neck had just a little too much set in it for my liking. so flatten it out just a little.  I did that with the old strings […]

Gretsch Country Gentleman – Neck binding

Finally got back to that old Gretsch.  Rather fragile, just handling it and bits of the binding are just falling off. The only way to be able to play it, is to strip it all off and replace it. I found some modern binding that just about matches the colour of the old stuff. It’s […]

Texas Custom Telecaster – Setup

What a lovely piece of wood, a really great looking guitar. It’s got a couple of problems, mostly just setup, but the neck isn’t on straight either.  Since the truss-rod adjustment is on the heel of the neck I’ll have to take it off anyway. I don’t need to measure that with a feeler gauge, […]