The Hub

Hello estimable friends, A very long-term friend of mine left us on Christmas Eve after a long illness. His sister tasked me with evaluating, restoring, and selling his stuff. Today I'm preparing to restore a 2008 Longhorn GOM to its original EMGs. Pulling out the humbuckers I see a Pearly Gates and… what looks like an original short-magnet PAF. Correct shape brass screws for the bobbins, UV light confirms sticker and tape, tooling mark…

Santa heard I had a challenging year so he got me a 3d printer for Christmas. I’ve been printing like crazy, learning the machine. This has resulted in a bunch of tools that either don’t work for me, were attempts at mixing colors, or have very minor printing blemishes. Two lots up for grabs to anyone in the US who wants either. I’ll mail to you for free. First one to claim each gets it :) First lot has parametric nut and saddle sanders…

I recently had a guitar come in with a crack in the top. The top was an arch top so the top was thick and the crack uneven from side to side so I wanted to be able to supply more pressure then just using magnets to be able to even up the crack sides. But access was limited to a small sound hole and so no way to get jacks or a clamp to fit. I also wanted to use full length longer cleats instead of fiddling with the tedious fishing reel…

Like many of us, I work in a small space - a quarter basement with maybe 6 -1/2 feet of headroom. Sawdust is a problem. There’s no room for an extensive ductwork system or a blower setup. My shop tools (bandsaw, drill press, vertical belt sander, etc.) have a 1-1/2 inch connection for vacuum, but I have mostly been too lazy to use them. (note that I finally added a portable shop air cleaner with HEPA filters). When the most recent Wo…

Hi everyone. I've built a bunch of pickups, in a variety of configurations, but I haven't built a set of blade humbuckers yet. I usually make my own bobbins/flatwork, but since this is my first set of blades, I went ahead and purchased some bobbins to see what they're all about. Which leads me to my question: how does the bobbin retain the blade? With the parts I have, the blade just slides into the top of the bobbin. Not especially snu…

This is a simple riser to fit between tuning machines on a headstock. I made two versions. One with a magnetic base and one that just clips on to the workstation.

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…

I've got this Telecaster pickup (1969). The pickup works. Is it possible to flatten the top without gluing it down to the windings? Clamping lightly with a caul slotted for the magnets seats it nicely but I'm not sure how to make it stay there. Any experience with this? Suggestions?

Hi dear luthiers, I want to build a copy of a vintage Gibson acoustic. Therefore I need to draw a good plan. Do you have good tips of how to measure the guitar, especially the interieur like braces or the back+side thickness? Do you have a certain schedule, that you follow? For the position of the braces I will use magnets. But the height, thickness and profile, how do you adress this? Thanks a lot in advance!

I have a Rickenbacker 620 on my bench; I have repaired the neck pickup (it came loose, uninstalled) and I am stumped with where the wire should dip into the control cavity. There is no hole in the route for the magnets, I assume it runs under the floating pickguard, but I dont see any relief or path under the main control panel. This has the toaster style pickups and dates to the 50's. Thanks in advance.

Anyone got any good tips for regluing a brace in an acoustasonic strat? I can get in there with a magnet and little violin clamp, but can't get effective pressure all the way down with those. Does someone make small scissor jacks? The gap between the top and back is 1.25 inches, so I can't fit even our cut-down normal one. I'd like something a little more elegant than wedging short sticks between the brace and back, but will use th…