The Hub

Hey! I had a customer drop off an ultra clean 60’s L4 and he has a repro de Armond rhythm chief he wants installed. Does anyone have any experience installing these with minimal modifications? It has the pole that mounts on the fingerboard which I’m hoping is the only mod. I ordered a repro guard and it will need to be notched for the pickup and have the volume and tone control mounted. Does anyone have any experience mounting a jack to th…

Ok. I am stumped. PRS Studio is in. 3 pickups. 5-way selector switch. 2 pots. Here's the dilemma: Customer wants two concentric pots installed. The front pot would be volume for the neck & middle pickups on the top knob, the bridge volume bottom knob. The rear knob is for tone. Top knob controls neck & middle pickups tone, bottom controls the bridge tone. I've gotten the skeleton of this sort of figured out but I don't....ha ha? The PRS 5-way…

Dear looth community/colleagues around the world, During 2023/24 I have developed a digital gauge to measure so-called longitudinal twist of (bass) guitar necks: the LTwist® gauge. Just to be clear, this is about the "cork screw" type of deviation along the length of a neck, not the bow of a neck. I think there is no need to explain how a too severe neck twist can make it difficult or even impossible to set up a stringed instrument (guita…

Hey all. I have an '82 Ibanez Roadster bass on the bench. The bridge pickup is their Super J4. My customer wants to tame the noise as much as possible. I've shielded the cavities to minimal effect so I'm thinking of wax potting it but before I do I just want to ask your opinions. The bobbin is quite thin and I don't know what kind of material it's made from. Having watched the Kent Armstrong video where he mentions that old DiMarzios sh…

Seven C Music is a full service guitar specialty shop located in St Petersburg Florida. The owners are David and Joel Hosler. Both have extensive backgrounds in repair and service along with other staff members. Seven C is currently looking to add a qualified repair technician to their group. The opening requires working experience of five years or more diagnosing and repairing both acoustic and electric guitars. This is not a back r…

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…

Hey all, I have a customer that brought a mid 2000's Gold Jazzmaster to get a suggestion on what to do to the neck of it. On the Low E side of the neck it has about .08 relief, while the treble side is at .05 relief, and the truss rod is maxed out. He has had several other well known luthiers in the area work on it, one of them tried a fret dress and a setup that only fixed it for about a month, and the other one heated the neck to add…

Hi everybody, I have a Maton EBG808C TE Tommy Emmanuel Cutaway Ebony Fingerboard in my shop for a setup but the instrument is also in need for a partial refret. The customer agreed to do that. Now, is there someone here that did this before that can help me to choose the right fret type for this job? On an average I have 0.080" width and 0.040" height for the original frets Thank you :-)

Hey all, wondering if any electronics wizards out there might have any insights on an '88 Gibson Chet Atkins. I do not have the guitar in my shop, but the owner has described the problem thusly... "it sounds like it's over driven or the battery is worn out when I plug it in to a board directly and play it with very little output.. and also.. it will not work through a direct box." He has already had it looked at by another reputable shop…

The neck on this Epiphone Les Paul was repaired by the local Guitar Center, but they left it ragged and the customer asked me to fix the finish. It appears to be very thick poly (not lacquer) and the crack has some glue left over from the repair. I would love to be able to just fill and finish the cracks, but I'm afraid it will be near impossible to match, so I'm inclined to strip and refinish the whole neck. Advice??

Hello good people, My shop’s in Quebec City, so I get to repair an ungodly amount of cracks thanks to our brutal winter and customers being largely unaware of the requirements of maintaining proper RH. Now for the first time (call me lucky) I have two very good guitars in the shop whose cracks won't close up after having been rehumidified for a few weeks. I have tried over-humidifying and it does it, but once returned to proper RH (50%)…

Hey Looths! I've got a potential customer in New Mexico who wants to ship me his Carvin bass to my area, Nashville, TN, for some repair work. He was referred by another customer. He reached out to me because he lives in a very rural area and guitar repair folks are scarce. I'll gladly accept the job, but I'm hoping we may have a local solution for him. Is there anyone in this amazing group close to Artesia, New Mexico? Thanks!

Hey everyone! My repair mentor was visiting my shop today and was talking about a customer of his who has a greven that needs a neck set. He has never reset one before and I was curious if anyone here has and knows any details about the neck joint. Thanks!!!!

Hey! So I've got a customer who has dropped off with me one of the nastier headstock breaks I've seen in recent memory. There is excess glue of some sort (rock hard, clear) all inside the break, along with the threaded tracks of the screws. I'd usually just recommend a replacement neck in this case, but the customer is desperate to keep this neck as it holds some sentimental value to him. He's aware the repair will not be invisible, how…

I have a customer bringing in a Taylor 410CE with intermittent problem pickup output cutting out. It has the 2 AA battery system I understand that Taylor no longer makes any repair parts for this system. If it is the output jack assembly causing the problem, I assume then that the whole system would have to be replaced. I have also heard the replacement system that uses 2 aa batteries does not have great reviews from customers online…

Hi, I have been sent a couple pics from a customer and they want to know what guitar they have. No branding and not something I recognise. It looks old though, tortoiseshell binding. But tail pice looks on the cheaper side of things. Any pointers to identify this one would be greatly appreciated. Apologies for the bad photos. I didn’t take them!

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…