While checking my messages this other day I found that I had missed a call from my friend Wes at Guitar Center. The message said that they had received a USA Les Paul that had been damaged in shipping. Apparently the neck had popped out of it’s joint.

I have been keeping an eye out for a decent “project guitar” and this one fit the bill.

Once I was able to take a closer look I found it was the best case scenario for neck joint damage. At first glance it appeared there just was not enough glue to hold the neck in place. Once I got the neck off, it was a bit more than just the lack of glue (although that was a problem.) The neck tenon (the part of the neck under the fretboard that is custom fitted and glued into the neck cavity on the body of the guitar) had been shaved too thin. No amount of glue was going to hold this neck for long.

I glued some mahogany shims into place on the sides of the neck tenon. After letting it sit in the clamps overnight, I shaped the tenon (with new shims) using a chisel and file into a snug and perfect fit. Before applying glue, I did a test clamp making sure the neck angles were correct (they were). I then applied the glue and re-clamped everything allowing it to sit for a couple of days while it cures.

Next up: touching up the finish.

Check back soon for more updates and photos!

This PRS CE-24 came into the shop with a dead volume potentiometer. After discussing it with the client we decided to replace all of the electronics (all less than superb components) with high quality Switchcraft and CTS components from RS Guitarworks located in Winchester, KY. I’ve known about these guys for a while, but this was this first time to try their products.

I was particularly intrigued by these components listed on their website:

500K RS Short-Shaft SuperPot®- We designed these pots in conjunction with CTS. Used for the volume controls in the kit, these pots have a custom taper that gives you a noticeable difference between each number on your volume control. You can finally roll your volume down to 2 or 1 and not loose any clarity, even in the neck position!! Mil-spec construction and a smoother resistor path make this the best pot to ever be used in the guitar.

RS .022 GuitarCap®- The GuitarCap® is the first and only capacitor designed specifically for the guitar. This part is the only capacitor in the world that meets our stringent quality-control standards, not only because of its construction, but because of how great it sounds in the tone circuit (more info on their site.)

The RS Guitarworks parts are not cheap. The Premium Modern PRS® Style Upgrade Kit that we ordered costs $69.45 plus shipping. While the kit does include CTS and Switchcarft parts and their $15 custom made capacitor for the tone knob, you are still paying a premium compared to similar components from Stewart-McDonald, Luthiers Mercantile or Allparts.

After installing the components, I can say that there is a significant increase of quality tone in the guitar. The taper on both the volume and tone knobs is very smooth with very little dramatic drop-off. And that $15 capacitor is rather nice sounding, too. Even with all of the high-end rolled off, there was still some nice presence to the tone that makes it very warm without being mushy. It’s not for everyone or for every guitar. But the buttery roll-off of the volume and tone pots are quite evident and adds precision to these controls that you don’t often find in guitar electronics.

Would we buy their components again? Bottom line: Yes.

On a side note with this particular project, we noticed that while the electronics cavity had been coated with shielding paint, however, the inside of the backplate was not coated in anyway. So we added some shielding tape and ensured that the tape connected with the guitar’s ground.

This acoustic has recently made it into regular rotation during it’s owner’s gigs. While it’s a fine guitar with some very nice burl ash back and sides, he wanted to improve the overal tone and sustain. So we replaced the plastic nut, saddle and bridge pins with custom made bone. The reason I use bone is because it a much denser material than plastic and transfers vibration much more efficiently. The more vibration that is transferred from the strings to the soundboard, the more rich tone and sustain the guitar will have.

I started with a bone blank, took measurements with a micrometer, then had at it with a belt sander, various files, sandpaper and ended with a polishing wheel.

For the saddle, the existing saddle slot in the bridge had a less than level bottom and the walls were a bit uneven. So I decided to widen the slot by about 1/64 of an inch to correct these imperfections. I then cut and shaped the saddle to perfectly fit the new slot dimensions.

Next up were seating the new bridge pins. They had a bit larger radius than the factory plastic pins. Nothing that a quick 2 or 3 turns with a reamer couldn’t fix.

For the nut, once it was cut, shaped polished and glued into place I needed to add the string slots. To determine the exact placement of the slots requires some precise measurements and some basic math. Sounds easy, but being dyslexic, I like to triple-check the numbers before making the first cuts with the files.

This acoustic came in with some phantom rattles that our client was having trouble identifying. Once we had it on the bench, we checked for the obvious culprits: loose braces and loose wires.

After a thorough inspection, all of the braces looked to be in good shape. All of the cabling seemed to be nicely tied down, too… except for one tiny 4 inch wire that was touching the soundboard.

The conundrum is that you never want to attach a double-stick-tape wire-tie to the soundboard. This is the piece of wood that vibrates the most to generate your guitar’s volume and tone. Attaching something to it will change the vibration patterns – not good.

So we kept the solution simple. We cut a 3 inch long piece of foam and slit it down the center. We then coated the inside of the foam with some rubber cement and wrapped it around the offending wire. This will keep the wire from rattling with out having to actually glue anything onto the soundboard.

This Epi DOT came in for a basic setup and a simple neck repair.

There was about a 3 inch long crack along the fretboard that needs some TLC.

It was a simple crack that was easily repaired with som cam-clamps and wood glued. After the repair was complete we performed a thorough set-up. The fretboard was extremely dry so we hydrated it with some synthetic wood oil.

This guitar had been sitting on the sidelines for a while and needed some TLC before it’s owner was to take it back on stage.

It was missing an output jack plate as well as some suspicious wiring on the existing output jack. This “economic” output jack was a weak link in the signal chain and was replaced with a well-made Switchcraft component.

The frets had some significant divits in the first and second positions that needed to be leveled and dressed. Also, many of the fret-ends were pulling up that needed to be re-seated (using a compression fretting clamp) before we started leveling.

The saddle heights did not come close to matching the radius of the fretboard, the intonation was way off and the fretboard was dry as a desert and needed to be oiled- so a thorough setup was in order.

The repairs and set-up were finished just in time for the guitar to hit the stage one more time.

This Guild JF30-12 twelve-string guitar has been a little hot under the collar. And by that I mean it has experienced some serious heat while on a recent trip to Southeast Asia.

The bridge was pulling up from the heat exposure and three of the internal braces had become unglued for the same reason.

The bridge was easily removed using more heat from a watlo silicone heater. Before re-gluing the braces, a planed piece of oak was clamped to the top of the sound-board to help reshape it into a flat top from the concave surface it had evolved into.

Gluing and clamping the braces required a bit of forearm acrobatics and contortion to reach inside the the ever shrinking sound-hole as clamps continued take up the valuable real estate.

Next step: re-glue the bridge.

More pix coming soon…

This Guild D-45 had an unfortunate encounter with a stage floor after being knocked off of its stand. The impact resulted in damage that could be better described as a crunch than a crack.

However, as far as traumatic wood damage goes, this is about a good as one could hope for. There were no wood chips missing and it was structurally still very sound.

The first step of the repair was to create some custom clamping cauls. We do this frequently so that when a guitar is in the clamps, they will provide even pressure. Since no two cracks are ever the same, the best way to do this is to make custom clamping cauls.

Our process is to cut out a 2×4 into a very close shape of the spot were the caul will be located under the clamp. Then apply a healthy dose of bondo car body filler to the caul, wrap it in plastic, and press it to the target spot on the guitar. After a few seconds, once the filler has taken the shape of the guitar, we remove it to cure. Once cured we clean up the edges and glue on foam or leather so the caul will not mar the guitar’s finish once in place.

Because the crack needed to be clamped on the outside of the acoustic, an interior turnbuckle needed to be placed to provide an opposite, outward pressure. Otherwise, the guitar would just cave in on itself when the exterior clamps were placed.

Once the guitar was out of the clamps, it was time to touch up the finish. This actually turned out to be much more difficult than usual. The lacquer that we were using for the touch up was not working and playing well with the existing lacquer on the guitar. As soon as the new finish was sprayed on, the exiting finish began to wrinkle and shrink. It was as if we had sprayed paint remover on the guitar.

It took a while to find the correct lacquer to match up, ut once we did things began to move along. Next step is to do a final wet sand and buff then set the guitar up.

This Guild D-55 came in for some basic TLC.

The endpin was quite loose, so we filled the endpin hole with a mahogany dowel that was sized to match. After the glue dried, we will re-drilled and reamed the hole for the endpin to create a perfect fit.

We also did a fret dress on this guitar to improve playability.

This Fender acoustic really needed a neck reset. However, while it is a fine workhorse guitar, it really did not make sense to make such an investment in an economic instrument. However, this guitar is used almost daily, so something needed to be done in order to improve its playability.

So instead of doing a costly neck reset, we decided to sand down the bridge and lower the saddle slot. While this technique only treats the symptoms and not the foundational problem of the neck being set at an incorrect angle, in some cases on less expensive guitars it can be very effective in lowering the action.

All often played guitar will eventually need a fret dress as the wear down. This acoustic was no exception and had some rather deep divots on the first 5 or 6 frets. So after making the adjustments to the bridge we did a fret dress.

When all was said and done, this Fender was very playable and the client was pleased with his guitars new feel.