The Hub

Hello everyone! I'm having quite a lot of issues with a Jackson Warrior I'm refinishing in 2K Spraymax. After a week, it is still not completely cured and it dents whenever I do the "fingernail-test". This is already the second time this happened. My process is: Sanded the body completely to bare wood, up to 320 grit. Filled with Z-Poxy, let cure for 24h. Sanded back to 400 grit Sprayed 1K primer, let dry for ~2 hours Sprayed 2x 1k color coats…

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…

Hey, fellow Looths. I need a small favour… Short version: Go to https://statuesque-cocada-438199.netlify.app and listen and vote. It takes about a minute. Longer version: A friend’s son is studying music and audio production in college and is working on a project to test the covered versus uncovered humbucker question. He reached out to me for some help and I’m reaching out to you. He designed a solid experiment (even modding a guitar so…

I've been testing all my top and bracewood to find the best combination of stiffness and density, optimize plate thickness, etc. I started with Nicoletti's spreadsheet which calculates both stiffness and density, but since I was also testing deflection, I decided to compare the flexural modulus using that method (with the formula from T. Gore's book) on the same plates and bracewood. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble getting a satisfa…

I've been slowly chipping away at a rebind on a Gretsch streamliner with full on rotted binding. The repair was started by a luthier in KC that passed away a couple years ago and I inherited the repair after it sat for a few years. I've glued some binding back in place on martins with the Pacer canopy glue, and that has worked out fine in the past. I did a test w/ some new ABS from stewmac that I was going to use for rebinding the gr…

Hello, Help needed please! 🙏 It’s a Washburn g10v that I am trying to source parts for. The owner wants to do a full restore but we can’t move forward with the job as the trem is missing the micro tuner thumb nuts. The trem is a big old rare thing with 2001 on the edge of it. Please see picture for reference. (Taken from reditt, a common problem it looks like) I have one of the thumb nuts here and I think it’s a #no.5 -44 UNF thread. But it’s…

I am switching from NC lacquer to EM6000. I also want to switch from black WB filler to blackened epoxy grain fill. My question relates to keeping the color in the pores and off the surface wood, and whether to vinyl seal before and/or after epoxy fill, I already know how to tint epoxy black. Could black grain fill style be accomplished with black epoxy as the grain filler and would a vinyl sealer be used at all, or just use EM6000 for…

So, I’m a month and a half into this repair business and so far so good. I think I’ve got more than adequate skills to handle the physical, customers have been coming in and balancing a relationship with starting a new business is going well. But…… The scariest thing is how to handle customers and the things they love. So far, I’ve been able to test the waters on repairing fairly inexpensive, not too attached to instruments, easing my wa…

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…

Hey Everyone! I am on the cusp of starting my own little repair shop from home. For around 8 years I apprenticed for someone who lives about an hour from me and has maintained a busy shop from his home for close to 50 years. The experience was great. I had a never ending supply of stuff to work on and was always watching someone else work on things throughout the day. In the first few years I was going on both my weekend days and would wo…

Hi! This is a new build but suddenly it's also a finish repair. I tested Ken Parker's Epoxy + Tru-Oil approach on the fretboard of this ukulele before committing to the rest of the instrument. It's a single (very thin) coat of West System epoxy (using the clear hardener), then 3 coats (so far) of Tru Oil. It's well-cured, about three months. The bad thing happened yesterday: attempting to dress a fret end, I was using thick double-side…

We do amp repair in the shop and have been using JJ's for quite some time but recently it seems that the quality is not what it used to be, brand-new tubes are testing leaky, etc. So to the amp guys, what is your brand preference on tubes these days?

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…

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…

After watching Jeff Jewitt's Touch Up for Builders video, I began looking for a source with a selection of pigments like he has. I started by looking at Mohawk Blendal powder stains, but they only had 6 of the 12 pigment colors I was looking for. I widened my search, and exchanged e-mail with a couple of Etsy vendors. I was fortunate enough to find KonstantasShop which offers 24 pigment colors. While I suspect this collection is targete…

I'll send you a sample or the file. let me know.

I just replaced my old knives with a helical cutterhead in a Jet 15" planer and am having issues with a test piece feeding through. Has anyone experienced this before? Have any idea what's causing it?

I'm the proud new owner of a "new to me" Fireball Meteor CNC machine. It feels really odd to have a computer in the shop but I guess I need to get used to that. Fortunately for me, I am well versed in CAD, unfortunately not so much on the CAM side of things. My 3 kids are all experts and are steepening the learning curve dramatically, this would be overwhelming if they weren't helping. So far I'm using the Fusion 360 personal use versio…