The Hub

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…

Hi, thanks for this great resource. This is my first post here. I work on my own instruments and have little experience with advanced repairs. Recently I acquired a ca. 78 Sigma DR28H. I bought it because it sounded great and came with a pickup installed. I wanted something for open mics and gigging. With light strumming it sounded fine but I found some buzzing when I took it to a jam. I made a nut and saddle , adjusted the truss…

Hello everyone, I hope you're doing good. I'm very much a new guitar repair enthusiast, any advice or feedback would really appreciated. I'm working on this Yamaha FG410A, as you can see, it's in rough shape. The guitar lived in a case in a storage container since the 90s. The guitar was really dry when I got it, so I started my slowly introducing moisture. I removed the frets and then put the guitar in a bag, with a hygrometer…

Can anyone recommend a good substitute for Johnson's Paste Wax? We're down to about 1/3 of a can, and it appears that it's no longer being manufactured, and I'm not too keen on paying some of the prices I've seen around online.

I’m about to do my first ebony fingerboard replacement and wondered if there was any advice, compared with rosewood fingerboard construction. I plan to use the small aluminum jig and fret saw to cut the slots manually, indexing off the old fingerboard. Thanks for any advice or encouragement!

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…

I don't know when it's from. This one differs from the other one I did, which was much more traditional looking (down to the 70s martin hollow tube neck support). Nothing surprising... pocket is directly under the fret slot.

For those of you who regularly do semi-hemispherical frets -- how long do you make your frets? Specifically for a bound fretboard (although I suppose this would apply to either bound or unbound) do your frets come up a little short of the outside edge of the binding? And if so, how much gap do you leave? I did my first semi-hemis on a new build and made them end flush with the outside edge of the bindings, but it doesn't feel right.…

I have a 74' D-28 im working on, just curious what you guys do in terms of process steps. Right now, im setting the angle, without frets(I reinforced the square tube rod with carbon fiber and will need to refret once put back together.) Do you guys shoot for the straight edge hitting the top of the bridge with, or without frets? Im wondering if I should undershoot my bridge just a touch so that then I can fret and have a good saddle hei…

I added measurements for the Yamaha FG red label FG 75's some time ago. I Keep getting these in for neck resets. I wanted to add photo's from the first one because they show that the dovetail joint does not align with the first fret beyond the neck/side to make folks aware so that one knows to slightly angle the drill to hit the pocket. I do the same on the holes drilled at the fret at the side/neck fret. I slightly angle the drill…

Hey lads I'm in a bit of an indecisive spot with a 70's yamaha acoustic refret. Pulled the original frets and the tang is .018" with no barbs just divots pressed into the lower edge. The slot is measuring .018". Struggled to find any suitable sized fretwire in stock in the UK that match what the customer wants that'll fit in the slot. Sintoms looked ideal but couldn't find any, so went with something with 0.20 tang and they're not pressi…

A Gagliano Jumbo probably made by Kay in the 1950's. It looks like this had a previous neck reset based on the shims and some sloppy chisel work. I removed the 14th and 15th frets because I had read that these might have a straight tenon. I didn't need to drill any holes for heat, as the spruce shims both split in half after the fretboard extension was released. The dovetail is about 11mm long, the pocket is 14mm deep, and the 15th fret…