The Hub

Hello All! My first post and I'm very happy to be here and share the highs and lows of this pony ride. After years of bending sides on a hot pipe or bending machines belonging to 'other people', I finally built myself a bending machine. Functionally it is great, but the result on some test material was far from great. See pictures attached. What you see here is a doug fir 'test side' that certainly came out guitar shaped, but oh my, what…

I made a couple of these rubber-band-powered jacks to temporarily hold things in place until I can get a clamp on the work. They are a snap to place with one hand.

I watched the Guild F-20 video (https://dev2.loothgroup.com/groups/repair-and-restoration/forum/topic/cracker-x-braces-on-guild-f20/#post-60310) with great interest since I've been working on a Gibson L-3 with a similar problem. A little back story - The original repair request was to address a small pickguard crack on the sound hole side. After peeking inside, I saw 5 loose brace ends on the treble side. Still a pretty standard repair…

Okay gang I have a doozy of a crack repair. Young guy brought in a Epiphone LP Limited Ed. He had picked up the case while it was unlatched at the guitar took a nasty tumble. Severe finish damage, and the wood has a shear split in it as well. The undercoat is thick with a thin layer of nitro color on top. Spoke with a sweetwater rep and they said that the finish was nitro. Here's the guitar specs via Zsounds: Epiphone Inspired by Gibson…

I've only built a handful of necks and most of them have been roasted maple fretboards. This time around I am using a beautiful and incredibly stiff/hard piece of ebony. I am doing a light hammering in of the frets to get them seated and then using the hand-held vice clamps from Stewmac with the correct fretboard radius to push them down evenly the rest of the way. This process works just fine on roasted maple. It's just a softer wood t…

I've been trying to figure out an easy to use jig that will allow me to clamp a top and back fast, so that I can use hot hide glue. No way with my spool clamp method I could ever get everything clamped in time. I thought about trying to use pneumatic cylinders with 3D printed perimeter feet, but that seemed very complicated and a lot of work to get something to attach the pneumatic cylinders to. But it kept coming back to me that usi…

So I have a ‘58 D-18 in for a lifting bridge. Upon inspection I find a 1/2” dowel glued from side to side about an inch below the top right under the front of the bridge. I’m baffled as to what this is or what it’s for. The current owner didn’t know it was there. Was just going to leave it alone (ya know, just back away slowly 😂) but it’s located such that I can’t get bridge clamps above or below it to reglue the bridge. And informatio…

hello looths - i'm building my first guitar. generally following (and enjoying) the gore/gilet books. after 3 tries, i've yet to get a crack free bend around the nose of a venetian cutaway with a mahogany side. i made a version of the fox bender - using clamps on hand for the waist and cutaway, and a pid temp controller (verified accuracy), and am using a stew mac blanket and three straps. the recipe for my last attempt was: sapelle (fo…

I'm nearing the end of my first build. I have about 1 mm gap above the top at the end of the fingerboard extension. I've read and seen some guidance to clamp that down while gluing the extension. Others seem to build in a wedge-shaped shim - although it seems that is mostly done with neck resets and not new builds. A straight edge on the frets is just slightly above the top of the bridge so I think my neck angle is good. What are your t…

Please can I see some quick cauls for dealing with fret pressing at heel transitions? For pressed / glued in frets or clamping down lifting fret ends in this area. I’ve tried a few different methods now and not entirely happy with any of them

What size do I need for gluing acoustic bridges (5"? 6"?) and is there cost effective source for these? Thx!

I took a basic Gridfinity tray and added a bar to the bottom to work with a cheap camera clamping from Amazon. The clamp fits on the main bar of the workstation, allowing an adjustable tool/parts tray to be mounted on the side of the workstation.

A customer brought a Martin D28 in for an assessment and below is the main issues with the guitar. It has two loose braces and two warped/broken "stringers" along the back of the guitar. In addition, the guitar is a candidate for a neck reset, although I think I can possibly kick that can down the road, and my main concern is the loose braces. I'm wondering what the best way to repair something like this is? I don't have much experience…

Just wondering what people are using for gluing PETG? I had the unfortunate realization that some parts I decided to print in PETG from makerworld needed to be glued. The super glues I have didn't work and then everything else close by basically said "not for use on pe". I found people saying PVC primer worked so I grabbed some at the hardware store and left some test parts clamped overnight. Rock solid this morning but it definitely ne…

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…

I recently picked up a gutted first year Country Gent with a headstock break. It had been previously "repaired" with mystery glue, nails, bondo and believe it or not.....staples. I am likely out of my depth here but I want to bring this little bit of history back to life. I scraped off the bondo and that is when I found the staples hiding underneath. I removed the staples and gave the headstock some gentle pressure and found that the ga…

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…

So stumbled on this video. Seems cool, I have large hands and am always cussing when using anything I have. I like the idea of pumping to apply pressure outside of the guitar. Curious if anyone used one previously?