Guitar ER

16/06/2022

Just a reminder (that applies to dogs and children, and your granny too of course) ....

With the hot weather about don’t leave them in the car even just for a short while.

15/05/2022

16/02/2022

Fender Mexico Jazz Bass.

Another bass, really nice Mexican Jazz bass ..... just a minute! Erm... 1 2 3 4 5 FIVE!!! ... Oh I see 5 string bass !

So it’s a re-string check over the set up .. gave the neck a tweak, action, bridge radius, the intonation was very close with minimum adjustment required. - I actually have trouble pitching the bottom B by ear fortunately the rack mount strobe tuner can ! ... old age is a cruel beast! 😊

Polished the frets and cleaned and fed the fingerboard.

Cleaned out an old repair and pulled in a little crack in the headstock ok it hadn’t moved for 20 years so unlikely to have but at least it has now had some glue injected (literally) into it and left it clamped up for a couple of days to make sure.

Very nice guitar !

15/02/2022

Poor old thing this was .. it had a crush injury, a broken main brace and worn out sloppy bridge pin holes ...
As it was a budget guitar (but well loved) the idea was always just to get it stable and playing so a bridge doctor (costing £’s vrs guitar value!)to help the distorted top or having the back taken off to replace the bracing under pressure was never on the cards..
I managed to clean off the old glue and dowelled the brace split and glued the departed brace back in, fortunately most of the old glue had broken down a little so cleaning up wasn’t too bad just a bit of a fiddle on the inside cleaning up and scraping.
The bridge pin holes had worn (or were always oversized?) so a standard pin was way to loose so I got some slightly oversized pins and recut the holes to suit .. I usually leave them very slightly proud to allow for bedding in..... So ‘old Blue’ is saved 👍🏻

11/02/2022

This Vintage brand guitar plays well and has a great vibe, unfortunately the volume control had failed, not sure if the wiring was original or not but I swapped out the Far Eastern (assumed) mini volume pot for a full size CTS ... all good now and you can turn it up to 11 no problem 🥴

11/02/2022

Had this very lovely USA Precision Bass in, just needed a few tweaks, managed to lower the action a touch after giving the neck a tiny bit more relief. From the shop the intonation wasn’t great but really pleased now - I was going to say it plays as good as it looks but I don’t think any guitar would ! ... it just looks so brilliant in that colour !

29/11/2021

I was asked to put together a Stratocaster using Mexican woodwork and all other parts to be Made in the USA.
The customer was frustrated by the fact that the current USA ‘vintage’ model had a 9.5” radius fingerboard and not the vintage correct 7.25” - I suggested the Vintera as a great option but he wanted 57/62 pickups, fender made in Japan (Gotoh) tuners and the pure vintage ‘PAT PEND’ bridge plus he wasn’t keen on the colour options so we ended up with this beauty!

The neck relief is .010” at the 7th
Action is to the requested spec at 4/64 at the 17th.
String height at 1st fret is .020”.
Classic series alder body.
Classic series 50’s (7.25” rad) lacquered neck (not poly).
True vintage ‘pat pend’ stamped trem/bridge assembly.
Fender 57/62 pick guard CTS pots all cloth waxed wired.
Eggshell pickguard & parchment covers and k***s etc.
Fender Japan (Gotoh?) tuners
Rest of the hardware are also USA bits.
I only stepped out of vintage spec (as far as available parts would allow) to include felt washers under the strap buttons!

Oh it sounds great!

17/10/2021

‘The Electric Spanish Guitar’
(Quote taken from the 1940’s Brochure)

Hi All,

Well, as suggested last time a National it sure is ... but not what you’d expect!

National have an interesting history taking in Hawaiian music, blues, dance bands, the fall out of favour due to the new fangled witchcraft thing called an electric guitar right up to the National Resophonic Guitar company who make (in my opinion) some of the finest guitars I’ve ever inspected and indeed ever to leave the USA.

A good friend and customer asked me check over a guitar he has, when he said National I’d got the metal work kit ready for a steel guitar but is a lovely old ‘f’ hole jazz guitar. The give away being I think National stopped production of steels at the start of the 1940’s and we believe this guitar is from 1950.

Next time it’s in we’re changing the odd tremolo arrangement for a more standard tail piece this will improve the down pressure on the bridge (also to be replaced) ... and take the fear out of having a tremolo on an old body with no centre block to support it.

The frets have been ground right down by some previous owner almost to the fingerboard but work fine and the intonation is surprisingly very good.

So what have I done?

Under the instruction to leave pretty much ‘as is’ for now warts and all I have improved the neck relief (it was too much) simply by dropping down a gauge of string as there’s no truss rod, in turn this meant the bridge had to be raised a little, this then meant the string break angle over the bridge was slightly improved, it’s still too shallow really as the tremolo unit ejects the stings quite high with no second bar to hold them down like a Bigsby.

I’ve also balanced the 1st fret action just by filing a little material out as required.
Frets, with so little fret they’ve just had a light Polish there’s no big trenches in them and although a bit rough they work / play surprising well, the dry fingerboard has also had a good feed.

I’ve checked a cleaned the electric bits tested earth etc. and even just through the little workshop test amp it sounded well!

Intonation was set using low tack tape before removing the bridge to give a guide later, then set and checked on the strobe tuner ... and my ears!

A good clean with the Beard guitar Polish and she was looking swell!

Couple of tips for working on old or vintage guitars.

- Use a non- abrasive metal polish on metal parts.
- Unless you have some experience with working on old guitars when changing strings do one at a time.
- Use a good polish preferably one (like Beards) with no chemicals at all.
- If you have to change any parts keep the old ones - a future owner may want them.
- As much as possible maintain a respectable humidity level and temperature (as with any guitar - I’ll do a piece on this later in the year)
- A case is a good idea!

I’ll add a few snaps below showing how it went and what this great guitar looks like!

Thanks for looking in

Ian x

11/10/2021

Hi All,

Hope you’re all safe and well after the last couple of very difficult years, and bless those who have had a particularly rough time.

So finally I’ve got a space ready enough to have taken in my first guitar for a while (ok, after one of my own!). I hope to get some photos up next week end as it’s a really unusual job, a clue is .... “it’s a national” treasure” ... but not what you’d expect?

Looking ahead I hope to record a couple basic workshop type videos and hand over a few little guitar maintenance tips.

Finally, I have something cooking for next year to focus on playing, music and songs so really looking forward to that.

Take care for now, catch you later 👍🏻