The Hub

Since most of us fix or make guitars, we have probably heard something about the cease and desist letters Fender has sent out concerning the Stratocaster. I thought I would offer some thoughts. As always, caveat emptor. There are three basic ways to protect intellectual property under Federal law. Patent, trademark, and copyright. Each protects different things, and has different underlying legal theories. Lets begin with pate…

Straight Frets in Austin has an excellent full-time position opening up soon. The job pays by the job, and equates to $70-85K a year for a tech that does: *neck resets *structural repairs *bridge making/reglues *refrets *headstock breaks with splines/airbrush We work on about 1,350 guitars a year (about 28-30 a week) and have had work shipped in from 22 different states at this point. We also teach setup classes on…

A visual dependency map for Autodesk Fusion. It turns complex Fusion designs into an interactive map of model logic, helping users understand how parameters, sketches, construction references, features, bodies, and other design elements relate to each other. Instead of digging through dense timelines, browser trees, and feature chains, Node Atlas gives users a readable graph of how a design is connected. It is built for designers, builder…

Back story: I work as a Repair Tech at a Guitar Center in Florida. A gentleman brought in a 50-year-old vintage banjo where the tuning peg on the neck had broken off. I don't have the equipment in-store to do this type of repair, and I told him I'd try to find him a shop that does. I'm looking to refer him to someone experienced in these repairs where he'd ship the instrument to you (i.e., you don't have to be in FL) for evaluation, quot…

I just opened a repair shop and the first repair was to remove a broken 1/8" hex wrench ball end from the truss rod nut of a Turner RB4 Renaissance Bass. I read of all sorts of theories on how to extract/remove. None of them had recorded actual attempts of the theories. There's probably others on here but I haven't found them. The ball end was loose and mangled at the rear of the nut sleeve. I tried fairly benign methods first. Heat…