The Hub

So today, while restringing a guitar, one of my techs dropped a .012 e string that slid down the wall and landed on a plug that was just slightly loose from the outlet. It landed just right and made a huge spark. No lesson to be learned here but a crazy thing to happen! We are changing our name to Sparky’s Guitar Service. 😬

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…

I am working on a neck reset on a Washburn Parlor - SN 283552. I have read that the 28 in the SN indicates that is was built in 1928, but the owner thinks based on her research that it was built before 1920. I am assuming a dovetail joint and that I can get into the neck joint for steaming by drilling into the 13th fret slot, but if anyone knows differently please let me know. The fingerboard extension has already separated slightly…

Well, I am pulling my hair out here... just did a compression fret job on a 2017 D18 Authentic 1939. Neck had severe excess relief, so I pulled the frets, planed the board flat, and got to work....done this a handfull of times, so I wasnt expecting anything out of the ordinary...... I got a handful of frets in, checked my relief by stringing up the guitar, and decided I need to keep pushing, so I got a full set of frets in and som…

Hi all, I am a newer guitar tech and after dozens of repairs this particular Simon & Patrick Luthier Cedar top SP6 acoustic dreadnought from the 90-ies with a bolt-on maple neck has been an incredible challenge. It came with a maxed out and stuck truss rod with a considerable up bow in the neck, extremely low saddle with barely any string break angle, so it needed a neck reset. Later on I figured out that it also has a pretty dras…

I'm restoring an old parlor guitar. I have just discovered that it plays 20 cents sharp. Thats not in and of itself a mystery, usually. This guitar however has exactly the same distance from the nut to the 12th fret, and from the 12th fret to the "saddle" which is now a small shim under the two E strings both are 12 3/32"...with room in front of the bridge pins to finesse the location of the saddle slot, which I have not routed yet) I s…

Hey All! I hope everyone has been loothing and living as well as possible. I'm checking in to ask for an opinion. I have been asked to fix or improve some top sinking/splitting of a Mahogany top 1930ish L-0 that sits between the bridge and the junction of the X-brace. It's showing signs of wanting to crack further but neither seems to be all the way through the top. I have removed the bridge plate cleanly and have tried wetting the…

I’m working on many more mandolins these days, and I absolutely love my Frank’s Cranks by Frank Ford (Gryphon Strings) for guitar work. I’m hoping to track down one of the smaller mandolin-size string winders. If you have one sitting unused, please send me a message.

Hi, I am in Germany and do not know anything about banjos really, because they are not too common here. I repaired a tuner and changed the tailpiece on this instrument. I wanted to put strings on the instrument, but the neck is so wobbly. At first I thought, this has something to do with string tension, but it moves sideways. Is there a good video on how to set up those instruments? It doesn t seem to be easy to take the back of? Or is eve…

Good afternoon all. I have started the process of removing all the binding from the old Country Gentleman and it's going well. I did discover after removing the strings that the neck is pretty loose and moves around quite a bit (no surprises there). I removed the black plug on the back side of the body then removed the large regular (slot) screw that holds the neck in place. I thought the neck would just slide out considering how loose…

Hi there! Working on a Squire Vintage Modified Jag. relevelled and crowned the frets. Lovely job. Set the relief and action to factory spec. So far so good. With a capo on the first fret, I set the string radius at the saddles to 9.5" using an under-string radius gauge, everything lined up nicely... ...but when I measured the action of all the strings along the 14th fret using my digital nut slotting gauge (expecting a unifo…

Hey everyone, I'm a technician at a music production school in London. As the most 'guitariest' technician on staff, I've become the de facto guitar maintenance person. A big part of my work is taking a look at each guitar once a week. Usually my "routine" is to check action and intonation, making adjustments if needed, then cleaning/polishing. The thing I struggle with the most is getting strings feeling good. We use D'Addario…

Hi everyone, Every once in a while, I come across a bass that simply refuses to stop buzzing. Right now, I’m working on a bass (I won't name the brand, but it’s in the €2,500 range) that has a slight fretboard hump near the neck pocket. I figured that was the culprit, so I performed a fret level under string tension. The frets are now perfectly level... yet, it continues to buzz across the entire fretboard, even with fairly high a…

Hi all, new to nut slot work world, please can you help me with this mystery? fret levelling, neck relief and string action adjustment all completed to Fender 9.5" radius spec. very happy with that. the next step: 0.011” High E string’s nut slot was a bit low. I used Dave Johnson’s (MI Guitar Craft Academy) “q-tip slot raising method”: the pulled cotton strand, plus extra thin CA glue, to fill the slot, then trim it off once dry,…

I have a customer with a guitar that has an intonation issue. It plays flat at the first and second fret on the D and G string. The factory spec says its a 25.5 scale but I measure from the nut to the 12th fret 12 5/8. I plugged the number for a 25.25 scale into the Stew Mac fret board calculator and the measurement is off from the nut to the first fret. Unfortunately I now longer have the guitar in my possession so I cant tell you exac…

A friend of mine inherited his great-grandfather's National tenor resonator guitar/banjo (I'm not sure which it is). He would like to have it in playing condition. He asked me for a recommendation as to where he could get that done. Fellow Looths, please give me recommendations. It appears to be in pretty good shape. He will ship it where ever it needs to go. There are photos below. Chris Jenkins Images

I finished levelling frets on a mandolin last week, and was surprised that the frets with the worst divots worked down to .020" Had I known that I'd go that low, I might have replaced them, but it's hard to measure divot height, especially those caused by thin strings. I haven't seen much discussion on standards for fret height or guidelines to know at what point should I switch from levelling to replacement. What standards are peop…