The Hub

Hi everyone, We’re really excited to be joining The Looth Group as new sponsors, and we wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. I’m Ben, and together with Paul McGill we run Go Acoustic Audio. Paul is in his 50th year of guitar making — a milestone that speaks to both his craftsmanship and his persistence in chasing better sound. He’s spent a lifetime building instruments for players at every level, listening closely to what works…

Hey Loothers, A client reached out requesting a neck with wider nut for his headless Ibanez 7 string. He would like it built with rosewood for the neck and the fret board which has been stored for years at a consistent 45 to 50 % humidity in his home. The frets are angled to make it play more ergonomically but it is not a multi scale instrument. He plays finger picking fusion style and simply needs more neck width at the nut to play mu…

I had a client dropped off his Suhr JM Classic for a pot replacement yesterday. The fretboard extension hangs over the pickguard on these a little so I flipped it over to loosen the neck screws a tad. I found what looked like 3 missing neck screws and only one screwed in place. The one screwed in place was bright and shiny. I removed that screw and the neck would not budge at all. I focused a pin light into the neck pocket holes to find…

I have a client who is going to paint a ES-335 kit guitar (Maple top and Back, Mahogany sides and neck). She will be using an Acrylic (Jesso) matte primer and then painting the entire guitar with Liquitex Acrylic water based paints. Poly finish on top of that. What steps do I need to take to prep the neck and body for painting? Sealer then grain fill then seal again? What products would you use? I have never done this before and am looki…

This may be a stupid question. A client has a Bartolini jazz guitar humbucker with no brackets, 5JNB: https://bartolini.net/product/5j/ They want to attach it to an ebony jazz guitar pickguard. How do you do that? My thought was to make a metal tray, bend it to the appropriate shape, screw it to the pickguard, and attach the pickup to the tray with double stick tape. Does anybody sell something like that? Or alternately, how do you attac…

Good Day all. I am just about to undergo a small project with a local programmer to make a simple client booking and job sheet creator. The idea is not to compete with shop flow etc but to be a simple solution for booking, assessment, job sheet and tagging guitars. I'm sure some of you like me book with a calender write out an assessment sheet and a bit of sticky tape on a case. Then an invoice to boot. The goal is that once a booking i…

A client has asked me to build an acoustic guitar using crelicam ebony for the back and sides that he is getting form Stewmac. I have heard it's challenging to bend, and this will be an OM so the waist is pretty tight. Any thoughts or suggestions for bending these sides? I use a homemade bending machine modelled after LMI's latest design (may they rest in peace) and I have had good success bending rosewood, walnut, mahogany, and pau fer…

Hello! Unsure of the "wordage" for this issue. And I'm assuming this has been discussed. Any way of stiffening the volume knob on a Strat? Client keeps bumping it while playing and turning down the volume. Does a rubber washer between the knob and guard work that well? Maybe I'm missing a common fix. Thanks.

Hey hive mind! Has anyone ever seen an acoustic saddle modded like this? If you have, what's the purpose of this notch under the b-bump? A client dropped off a bunch of guitars for repairs and setups this weekend and this saddle was in an early 2000's Larrivee dreadnought. It has a factory installed K&K Pure Mini under bridgeplate pickup and sounds great.

I'm building a guitar where the client wants to use a three way slide switch (DP3T) instead of a three way toggle switch (DPDT) for having a series/split/parallel wiring configuration. We're already locked into using the slide switch instead of the toggle, and I didn't previously realize that the slide switch was DP3T so now I'm trying to figure out how to adapt the wiring. I was going to use the series/parallel/split wiring for a DPDT f…

Hey Looths, I have on my bench a 40's Gibson Banner J-45. At some point someone glued a supplemental bridge plate onto the original plate. I assume this was done in an attempt to reinforce with string balls having torn up the OG plate. My customer would like me to remove this and uncover it's secrets. Client usually brings in very nice instruments and understands the nature of guitars from this era so communication on this is pretty str…

We hear a lot in LoothLand these days about 3D printing. I think it's an awesome use of that technology for what we all do. With my long history with AutoCad and 3D rendering in my previous life, I should pull the trigger on a 3D printer, but I'm just not ready yet AND I have no available space for one in my little shop or in my office right now. Yes, 3D printing is great, but sometimes, good ole regular printing can be a surprise frien…

So I have a pearl inlay I need to do for a clients build. given that the ends of my pearl blank will sand down, and there will be engraving on this piece, is it best to inlay the pearl, sand it flush, and engrave my text? or try and engrave it first, and do so deep enough that my text wont sand out of the pearl when its leveled to my fretboard? Has anyone used CNC to engrave pearl?

I have a ©1930s Blue Comet mando on the bench for a setup. The plan is to return to the original floating bridge, but I'm concerned it may be worn out! These aren't valuable instruments in today's market, but this one has been in my client's family for four generations. The neck is at an odd angle, so it may need resetting. If anyone has any special knowledge about these instruments, don't be shy!

I've done the Fender Grease Bucket Circuit mod on a lot of Strats and it always works. A customer recently brought in a 335 kit for wiring. It got 3-TV Jones humbuckers, each wired to a Seymour Duncan Triple Shot Mounting Ring, 3 separate volume controls and a master tone with the Grease Bucket circuit. My client wanted to see a clear diagram of the wiring, so I got GuitarElectronics.com to generate one. I've used them several times in…

I had lunch with a friend and client this week and we got on the topic of 'who did what and where' in the area, in terms of guitar repair. They brought up something that really felt like an object lesson in how rumors are propagated by people that don't understand the work that we do and I felt compelled to share. This was repeated person to person and originated from the shop it happened at: a certain someone at a certain music store…

The concept of overtime exists in all other industries. I decided some time ago that I needed to implement overtime into my business model because I was working very hard to accommodate rush jobs at much inconvenience to me and much benefit to the client, and I had come to realize how unfair that was to me as well as to my family. Here is how I did this. I do most of my transactional interactions with customers by email. Sometimes I’ll m…