The Hub

Side bender machine in great condition. Includes spring steel, heating blankets, and thermocouple. No bending forms included, just the machine itself. Asking $600 for local pickup in Chicago area.

Kapton polyamide Heat resistant tape. Combined with heat resistant soldering matts, can help as a heat sink to protect finishes from getting scored. The tape is to line the matt with, not to stick onto guitar finish as it’s high tack. The matts are usually made from fibre glass so ideally needs a heat resistant covering to make it more usable. https://plumbingsuppliesdirect.co.uk/soldering-equipment/soldering-mats/ https://www.strouse.com/b…

Hello everybody! I've got a newer Martin Special 16 (all solid wood with matte back/sides and gloss top) in for some loose braces. Here in Houston I'm used to dealing with acoustics damaged by over-humidification or extreme heat rather than what I often see addressed in the group by you wonderful folks in your colder (normal) climates. My customer had this guitar shipped to him from Wisconsin, and I suspect it was exposed to some extreme…

This thing had a conveniently placed hole in the neck pickup cavity that ran all the way to the end of the tenon, presumably the entry point for the long drill bit that drilled the access from pickup cavity to control cavity before the neck was originally fitted. I injected several pipettes of hot water into this hole while heating the fretboard extension area with a silicone blanket to loosen the extension from the body. Reactivated hi…

Hi all, hopefully some useful information. Dovetail mortise sized from 39mm to 45mm front to back, 19mm deep. I drilled 18mm in from the sides of the fretboard - the extension and neck came off quite cleanly - extension heated with heat pad and pocket with heat sticks and a tiny amount of injected water. Steve

Getting the fingerboard extension off was the hardest part. It required a 1/2 hour at about 230F (measured on the fingerboard surface). The neck join came loose in about 15 minutes using heat sticks and injecting a few cc"s of water every 5 minutes.

This is an early 80's Jester. The only identification is the label inside which appears to show the model number as ACW160, though I've only seen reference to model W160 online. There is scant information about Jester guitars online, and some of it seems inconsistent. This was most likely made in either Holland or Romania. Online information indicated that this would have a dowelled neck joint, but it clearly doesn't. This was a very di…

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…

Required 30 minutes of heating with the Ian Davlin design heat sticks at 3 amps, periodically removing one and injecting a few cc's of water. You can see from the burn marks I missed the location of the outer edge of the dovetail. When it finally lets go the neck tips up, but does pop out because there is glue under the "tongue".

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…

It's getting to that time of year again where workshops are getting cold. What are you all using for heating? etc, Are you heating overnight? What temperatures do you find guitars and your bones can withstand. What do you find helps balance heat and humidity? Just a discussion about winter in the workshop.

Hey all. I have a Martin D18 with a severe belly up. The bridge has nearly popped off all the way at the time it was brought to me. Looking inside, the bridge plate has a crack going across all the pin holes. There's a few additional cracks above them toward the sound hole. Replace, or not replace, that is the question? Is this plate salvageable, with a tool like StewMax's BridgeSaver? I'm planning to heat treat the footprint of the bri…