The Hub

Hi gents, Do any of you have a favorite dulcimer pickup? The Folkcraft NT11 sounds really nice from the demo, but they're not available. I'm having trouble recommending a pickup to my customer, I'm not sure to go with a transducer, mic, or piezo in this situation. I'd like to go less invasive if possible, but cutting holes is not out of the question.

I had a customer that wanted a blower switch installed on his James Tyler HSS style Strat. Simple enough, except that he wanted the full humbucker to go through the volume pot as well. The HB was a 4 wire and incorporated a toggle switch to split coils. I scratched my head for a while, drew up a diagram and breadboarded it. It requires a 6PDT switch which was the hardest part of this job to find something that fits. When the switch…

Anybody ever put a clear coat over top of this type of pen. Customer has a Fender Edge signature strat that he had signed by The Edge. So yeah, no pressure on me for this job. I'm thinking I'll try on a scrap guitar with Mohawk Ultra Flo Ultra Bond, which is my go-to for most cosmetic jobs that require painting.

Customer brought in on this '70s Gibson Heritage acoustic with severe bridge damage. I need to replace the bridge, but I don't have the tools to cut or design one in shop. Any help would be appreciated.

Hey wiring gurus, A customer wants a harness setup that I've never tackled before and I just wanted to ask if y'all knew if this was possible before I start making a diagram. We were thinking of using a Super Switch and a push pull to do this with his HSS strat: Switch settings: 1 Bridge 2 Bridge Split 3 Middle only 4 Neck + Bridge 5 Neck only Push Pull pot for a "blower" bypass switch Thanks!

Hi everyone! So I have a Fender Custom Shop Strat in my shop at the moment, and it's a real PITA. I've leveled the frets, made a new nut, and set it up to my liking. Normally this would help remove a lot if not all fret buzz, but this guitar just keeps buzzing all over the fretboard. Every single fret buzzes. It's very prominent as well. I've heard some guitar techs say that "some guitars just buzz more than others", but I can't accept t…

OK I know I just posted here, but I just had a tremendous customer service experience and had to share. I contacted Guitar-Restore.net about this, they had a similar graphic to what I needed for my Harmony, but it was on vinyl instead of a waterslide decal. They not only made one available for me, they just added it to their site!! Couldn't be happier. So if anyone needs custom decals or graphics for a project, I highly recommend th…

I'd like to start a discussion about guitar polishes. We have always been careful to use only non-silicone products on nitro finishes. We previously used Stewmac Preservation polish for years, but they don't offer that product anymore. We recently had maybe what was a bad batch of Stewmac "Clean and Shine" that was softening nitro finishes so we trashed it and haven't purchased anymore. The first bottle we got worked great, but the s…

I was recently asked to do some set up work on a Taylor GS Mini when I noticed the bridge beginning to lift at the back corner on the treble side. The pickups/electronics are mounted through the bridge plate and bridge, which is not something I've dealt with before and I'm wondering about how you all approach bridges like this. Any tips, tricks, warnings, etc. Would you tend to remove the bridge and reglue (if so, how nightmarish is it d…

Anyone have a source for a company that can make custom paper faced labels to go inside a guitar. I've been printing them with a laser printer for years, cutting them out, and gluing in. I'd like something that looks better and is adhesive backed to sign, date, and stick inside guitar. Thanks

This is a super sucky repair, I know. A customer brought this Goldtop LP in. He decided he wanted stainless steel posts. So he pulled out the post, then somehow broke a drill bit off inside the hole. The broken bit is still in there. Then he put the new stud in and broke it off too. He asked me to remove both the broken stud and the broken drill bit. 🤷‍♂️. This may impossible but any advice is appreciated.

Any recommendations for custom decal suppliers? I thought I had seen a discussion here at some point about this, but I can’t seem to find it if it actually does exist. I used to have a guy I ordered decals from but I haven’t been able to get up with him even though his website is still open. I was thinking some of the collective brain trust here may be able to help me out with this.

Recently I’ve been working on a carbon fiber headstock repair. I was having problems with the clear coat. I had applied too much. Today I decided to invest some time trying to correct it. I believe I’ve reached a decent ending for that portion of the repair. The guitar was gifted to me by a customer so it’s mostly just practice and will eventually be a demo for cf with grain matching. For what it is, I’m pretty happy. Let me know any tho…

I drew up and printed these F hole plugs for a customer a little while back, felt like showing them off here. The bottom diamond shaped piece has a M4 nut in it, and is super glued to the body of the plug at its two tips. An M4 screw threads into the nut through the counter-sunk hole in the top of the plug. The entire plug drops into the F hole, and then you can tighten the screw slightly to expand the plug so it clamps itself into plac…

Hello fellow looths! I'm in a pickle and am looking for some advice, hopefully you can help me out a bit. I currently have my own shop, repairing, doing maintenance, and an occasional build once or twice a year. I love doing it, but it's not generating enough income at the moment to be doing this full time. So far, I only get 5 star reviews and always get positive feedback from my customers, but I just don't have enough customers at the m…

I had a customer bring in a '76 Ric 4001 with a fretboard separation from the neck around the 3rd and 4th frets. I tried squeezing it closed and the board would not budge. I figured maybe dried glue, wood or schmutz was impeding the fb from laying back down so I made a special little palette knife with a hooked edge to clean it out. I instead hit metal. After a bunch of hemming and hawing since nothing was budging we opted to remove the…

Hoping to repair the original pickguard. Customer isn’t fussy about methodology and understands that a new pickguard might be the ultimate outcome. Anyone have ideas of how to repair this one?

I used to run a cnc punch press at a machine shop. It was a Trumpf. For some reason the brand just showed up on my Instagram and I checked it out. Apparently they make printers that print metal powder. @member are you ready for the next level? Might be interesting for custom hardware. https://www.trumpf.com/en_INT/products/machines-systems/additive-production-systems/truprint-1000/