The Hub

I have a set of bubinga for an acoustic back, but one piece had a slight cup that made it difficult to work with for joining together. This is pre-thicknessed, with the piece at 4.5 mm thick. I tried wetting and heating it, as I do for sides, and pressed it flat during the process. I heated it to 300 degrees F, and then let it cool while pressed, and the cup got substantially worse. I then pressed it into a reverse cup using a radius…

Hello, One of my commissions is coming down the pike and it's going to be my first time using bar frets. I could use a once over for any helpful tips if you have any. About the guitar: Aged HD-28 but mahogany back and sides. I think Martin called this a HD-28 M? Skipping the truss-rod and using two carbon fiber strips. My process for Frets: 1: I CNC my fingerboards to a 16" radius and for T-frets I use a .023" to cut slots with a mat…

I cut the fret slots for a baritone guitar build today, so I thought I'd share my method for cutting fret slots, as I think it is a bit unusual. I radius and profile my fretboard before I cut the slots. I print out a paper layout of the fretboard, double-stick tape it to the radiused and profiled fretboard, line up the saw by eye to using red hatch marks on the printout, and saw the fret slots with a 3" circular saw that rides on…

Hey everyone, I wanted to do a bit of a follow up on a repair I'm doing. A customer brought in a Seagull acoustic guitar that had been dropped, causing the heel block to separate. I managed to get that glued back together with pleasing results, however I did need to take the neck off by removing the two bolts which thread into the heel block, and unglued the fretboard extension. All went well here, although I'm left with a situation whe…

Does anyone have a vintage Gibson LP Special around to check the body edge radiuses for me? Is it a consistent 1/8” (or so) all the way around the entire top and entire bottom? Including the horn, ledge behind the neck heel, etc? Thank you! This 56 seems pretty consistently rounded over across the entire top and back.

Hi everyone - I recently ran into trouble making new nut for one of my necks that needed to be trued and re-fretted. I roughed in the nut as usual and then, with the bass guitar fully assembled and strung up, I started cutting the slots to depth. I use the StewMac digital nut slot depth gauge and have had good results in the past. I marked the nut's lowest points (radiused) using the guitar nut scribe tool (first time using this!) and c…

Working through my first refret. Trying to straighten the neck before radius sanding. What should the natural relief look like when straight? Using a straight edge there’s always slight gaps somewhere. Does natural neck relief start at a certain fret?

Hey! I have a friend who builds flat tops who wants to give stainless a try. I have done a handful of refrets and he was asking advice. He is using a compound radius from 14” to 20”. Jeskar sells the coils and they come in 10”. I have only done installs where the wire matches the board precisely. I bought pre cut pre radius bags for these re frets. Has anyone worked on a compound radius. Do you radius each fret on a bender or can you get…