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I had a customer ask me to take a look at this electric guitar an "amp guy" did some work on. (if you couldn't tell by the size of cap he installed 😆) Seymour Duncan hsh pickup configuration. Is there any good or logical reason one would put the north start, finish and the south finish all on the same lug of a switch? The guitar plays but has more buzz on the hb settings than the single coil. I know how to rewire it to be more... traditi…

Hi Folks Newbie here so please bear with me. I have a lovely early 90's Yamaha LD-10E acoustic in for repair, I think all solid wood? made in Indonesia and a lovely sounding instrument, however the electrics are letting it down. The pre-amp has a PCB populated with SMD electrolytic caps. Many of these have leaked and destroyed the PCB pads underneath. Repairing the traces is nigh on impossible so it looks like I'll have to replace t…

I have a customer with a 2018 Gibson SG special with mini-humbuckers who is complaining about the pickups being too hot (distorting their amp too easily). I took resistance readings and, to my surprise, the readings are very high. The neck humbucker (see photo) reads over 16kohm and the bridge reads 23kohm. From the specs I've seen, mini-hums more typically come in around 6-7kohms. Has anyone seen this with Gibson mini-hbs that appear t…

Ok, I'm a new builder and I've only done solidbody electrics so far, so this question is related to only those. In my opinion, these are the things that have the most impact on tone, listed in order from most influential to least. Have at it! Pickup/electronics, neck joint type, neck construction (including fret size/material), scale length, bridge type, bridge saddle material, tone wood Of course, this only takes into account the guitar.…

Straight Frets started an expansion into a second city with a second Plek machine at the start of 2024. The initial spot had the wrong landlords that would not honor their HVAC agreement, and subsequently the failing HVAC units made prior to 9/11 never allowed the Grand Opening Event to happen. After bailing out of the wrong spot 7 months later, we are now up and running in a much cleaner location with a brand new HVAC, much closer i…

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".

I've had a customer bring in a Sire Marcus Miller with a faulty volume pot. Currently I have an alpha concentric pot installed but it's too big for the cavity with all the wiring, pre-amp etc. and the knobs don't fit the shaft. I tried using insulation to widen the shafts but the discrepancy between the centre of each knob (Upper and Lower) has them bumping up against eachother and moving in tandem. Does anyone know where to source thi…

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?

Hello folks, I recently purchased some dental articulating paper to use for my neck resets, and to my chagrin it arrived as a smaller length than I anticipated. It is only 18 mm long, which is only enough for about 2/3 of the length of the mortise. I’ve tried to look up other brands, but none that I can find listed their dimensions. Does anyone recommend a brand or variety that is adequate length? Thanks!

Today I have spent the better part of five hours attempting to get the fingerboard extension free on this guitar. I am using the method I have used for dozens of neck resets: 100 watt halogen bulb with heat shields. After a couple hours I thought I was making some progress under one corner, only to discover after some movement that my palette knife was going through the top. I then abandoned that area and have been applying heat and…

Hello, This is my first discussion as I am new to this group. I am starting a restoration project on a 1957 Gibson LG-1. The first job on it that I want to tackle is to replace a broken back brace. It appears to be broken in half right on the center line (see pic one before the brace was removed). I have removed it and am gluing in back together (pic 2), just to get it strong enough to use as a template for fabricating a replacement…

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…

Hello fellow Looths, I had a question in regards to a curious issue from a customers guitar. The guitar was brought to me in part because the customer was having an issue where the guitar was intermittent and would ground out. It's a partscaster with an HH pickup configuration, one volume, one tone, 5 way switch, and the tone control splits the humbuckers. The pickups are quick connect Dimarzio's. I took the pickguard off and noticed tha…