A puzzle in three dimensions.

But a really, really ugly puzzle. Here Tim is fitting together the still attached shards of wood resulting from another classic Gibson neck break. Tim likes doing this kind of work and is very good at it.

It was a lucky day!

Bret from the wildly popular "Flight of the Conchords" stopped by prior to their SF show, purchased a Gibson B25N from Real Guitars and then waited patiently, chatting with us, as Gary installed an LR Baggs M1 active soundhole pickup. Here are (L to R) Drew (soundman for the tour], Trevor, Bret and Gary in the shop. Of course some of us went to the show and yes, we're fanboys. Bret used that guitar for the entire set. The guitar sounded great. They did too...

It was a long and involved job.

And it came out great (see the entry for 4/4/08). Now the owner of the guitar Gary is holding in his right hand would like to do it all over again, this time with the guitar Gary is holding in his left. That fellow is a repeat customer and we love him.

This is going to hurt me...

...a lot more than it's going to hurt you. Trevor has placed this mute guitar on the rack to extract a geometric truth. It's clamped down prior to leveling (also known as "truing") the fingerboard. Once the fingerboard is trued he can accurately refret the instrument. Once the guitar is refretted it will undergo a computerized fretmill on our PLEK machine and then receive a complete set-up by hand. Our refrets also include one year of free, while-you-wait service adjustments.

Use Makes Master

Here at Stringed Instrument Repair in San Francisco, California, we adhere to the philosophy of reduce, reuse & recycle. In this photograph, Trevor, wanting a new angle on his work, uses whatever is handy to prop up the neck of this Stratocaster and, in this case, it's a roll of paper towels.

We tried to talk him out of it

...but not really that hard. Here Gary is discussing with Matt Z. an installation of the electronic innards of a Fulltone Deja Vibe stompbox into an unsuspecting Epiphone Sheraton. Issues such as how to power the unit onboard (the stompbox is powered by a wall-wart, not batteries), which guitar top control holes to take advantage of and even whether or not some kind of LED array that flashes at the same rate as the effect can be installed in the two f holes.

busy day

Here we have (from top to bottom) Trevor cutting a bone nut for a Les Paul, Tim preparing the surface in the gouged fretboard of a handmade Robin prior to filling it in with a new chunk of Madagascar rosewood and Gary digging into the arcane custom electronics of what might be the heaviest Strat we've ever hefted.

a tristissimus carmen

It's a rare and incurable condition, typically observed in the presence of those whose lives prove the old adage: "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Here the purported owner took it upon himself to fix what might or might not have been broken. It's guitar repair job security.

The Sacred Order of Accretion

Our shop is a member in good standing and so is the wind instrument repair shop area of the Chicago Store, in Tucson, AZ. As this image indicates, we all look the same with only minor variations after twenty-plus years of stuff piling up on top of of other stuff.

The Blendy Pot Modification

Here's a great mod we can do for your Strat! Below is our blurb explaining the how and why.

---begin shameless ad copy---

Triple Your Strat’s Tone Options (without ugly switches)

The basic Stratocaster wiring harness offers five pickup combinations. With a “Blendy” potentiometer (pot) added, you have the ability to mix the Bridge and Neck pickups together, as well as being able to have all three pickups on at the same time. A Blendy pot is installed in the bottom tone pot position of the standard Stratocaster array (when the Blendy pot is installed the middle tone pot becomes the master tone pot for the entire wiring harness). With the Bridge pickup selected using the 5-way switch, rolling down the Blendy pot from 10 to 0 brings up the level of the Neck pickup to combine with the Bridge pickup.

The opposite is also true.

With the Neck pickup selected using the 5-way switch, rolling down the Blendy pot from 10 to 0 brings up the level of the Bridge pickup to combine with the Neck pickup. If the middle pickup is selected alone and the Blendy pot is on 10 (all the way on) the Blendy pot will be out of the circuit and have no function. All three pickups are on simultaneously when the 2 or 4 position of the 5-way pickup switch is selected and the Blendy pot is on 0 (all the way off).

---end shameless ad copy---

Just because it's not your style...

...doesn't mean you don't look good with it. Here Trevor demonstrates the truthiness of the axiom.

o yes...

(update to a previous post) Not content to merely have a sustainer installed the owner also had Gary heavily rout the body and then install the guts of a tremolo pedal inside this import tele copy. Maybe we could cut the logo off the metal case of the stompbox and attach it to the headstock. It would look cool.

there are no guitar emergencies

To what lengths will we go when adjusting a guitar? To what lengths will the owner of a guitar go to explain how they want the guitar adjusted? Where is the place in the center where those two intentions meet? A guitar is a a physical thing, subservient to the laws of the physical world. We humans are an entirely different matter. Existing in the physical realm but all too often ruled by incomprehensible emotional resonances, it's not uncommon for the owner to experience a significant portion of their personal emotional validity through their guitar. It's perilous to ignore this aspect of our work.

As we mentioned earlier...

(in the year) we are a warranty station for almost all the big guitar manufacturers and most of the smaller, boutique luthiers as well. Here is something we have found in our experience that may be useful to you, Gentle Reader, if you are planning to acquire a new acoustic guitar and are interested in using that guitar with a pickup. We recommend choosing an acoustic guitar based on how it sounds, looks & feels acoustically. Factory installed pickup systems don't necessarily have to play as important a part in your choice. Besides having a wide choice of after-market technologies & sounds (to say nothing of saving a couple hundred dollars), any warranty issues may involve a frustrating waiting period while the manufacturer replaces a defective part or a less than perfect installation is rectified. We see this a lot.

UPDATE - Several of the manufacturer-specific installations are actually very good including (but not necessarily limited to) Taylor's Expression system, the Takamine pickup systems and various Fishman and B-Band assemblies. It's important to check out the instrument well. If you are going to purchase an acoustic guitar with a pickup system installed remember to plug it in and test the guitar through an amplifier. Pluck the strings individually to make sure that each string resounds at the same volume level. Gently move the output jack cable end while it is plugged in to the guitar to test for a loose connection. While the instrument is plugged in move all the controls or sliders to make sure they work!

The scent of Brazilian...

...rosewood, that is. Tim has been leveling the fretboard of this 1964 Fender Jazz bass and, if one bends down close to the dust accumulating at the end there is a distinct scent arising from it. At once bitter, cool and slightly sweet with only a hint of the arid, acrid loam from which the tree sprang. The scent of rosewood dust transports one to another world.

big bottoms

these two instruments (one a disconnected body) resting on Tim's bench are in the process of having their bridges reattached, glued and clamped. If they could only talk (maybe they are and we can't hear them).

"why does it, why does it, why does it huuuuuurt?"

With intense focus, deep gravity and sober judgement the technicians at Gary Brawer Stringed Instrument Repair illuminate the path to righteous clarity through an ascetic, some might even say monastic, cultural gestalt. No one has any fun, either.

getting what you pay for

The owner, ecstatic at the "great deal" he got on this poor beat-up G&L bass, rightly considered new strings, a setup and some repairs to address the strange sounding electronics would be just the thing to bring it up to snuff. A close look at the instrument revealed flaws of a nature deep enough to require major surgery on all fronts. The neck was twisted (requiring heavy planing of the fingerboard and a refret, if not an entirely new neck) and the electronics cavity looked like someone had peed inside it. Crestfallen, the new owner took his great deal home. We didn't charge him anything.

a cursory glance around the shop...

reveals (from top) Gary's hands installing the guts of a Marshall VT-1 Vibratrem stompbox into Timmy P's faux telecaster, Tim's hands installing foam underneath the EMG pickups of Bruce C's Fender P-Bass and Trevor's hands carefully measuring the slot alignment while cutting a bone nut for James H's dinosaur Flying V. It's 3:24PM PST and we're listening to early Hall & Oates.

what we lack in organization...

we make up for in charm

ouch

We can do miracles but only if we have all the parts. This is all that made it to us and we don't have our cloning/matter fabrication/chaos engine set up yet. If your wooden instrument should suffer a break, gather up all the pieces, even the small shards. It makes a difference.

street value vs. emotional resonance

This instrument was brought to us by the whole family. The eldest son was moving beyond his first guitar (pictured here) and giving it to his sister. It needed a fair amount of work to make it playable and reliable. The thought crossed our collective consciousness for a brief moment that, based on the projected labor costs of the work involved, it might be more cost effective to simply purchase a new instrument of the same caliber, say a Squire or another Ibanez. But that thought was quickly tossed aside with the realization that it's her brother's first guitar. There's no price on that.

at work we know him as the

Caffeinated Elf. But to his legions of fans he's a Rock God. He's Fernie Rod and he shreds.

the girls at work

"where's the shielded coaxial?"
"mogami or belden?"
"gimme the belden..."
"I have the smaller roll."
"how much do you need?"
"it should live over here."
"what's for lunch?"

a little stress relief

Trevor takes a break from helping guitars to sound and play their best.

Specialized needs call for special talents

Here Gary was presented with a naked Parker Spanish Fly guitar consisting of only the body/neck assembly and nothing else. He fabricated a bridge, installed an RMC pickup system (including routing the electrical cavity as well as the side of the body for output jacks), made a bone nut using the Buzz Feitin tuning system, installed high-end Sperzel tuners (custom made for this guitar), handmade a form-fitting custom backplate and, after assembling all the parts, made the instrument play correctly. This kind of work isn't cheap and doesn't happen overnight.

It takes a man to play a Peavey.

Every afternoon, right about this time, our mischievous sprite, Chris, will haul out a classic American solid body electric guitar and play a series of notes, runs, riffs, scales and phrases in a particular idiom; one that every retail music store employee eventually comes to know and dread. But this day was different. An anomalous event, an occurrence of such rarity that even it's observation meant a disturbance in the Force. Drawn by an irresistible urge, Chris plugged this orphaned instrument in, cranked the gain to "Terminator Bees," and began to fingertap like Steve Vai in the 1986 Ralph Macchio vehicle Crossroads, furiously chasing the Divine Muse of Death Metal across the foul undead Plain of Hungry Ghosts. Everything in the shop came to a halt. Techs looked up from the bowels of solid-body electrical guitar cavities, luthiers stopped luthering, administrative tasks were forgotten in a psychic wash of full-spectrum ambient ganglion white noise. But as soon as he'd begun, Chris realized what he was doing and stopped, gazing down at his fingers, appalled. We looked away, the pain of observing his embarrassment more then we could stomach. Life went on. Chris eventually moved, with his family, to Modoc, where he manages a small Community Center, catering to teens and veterans. We never heard surf music again.

Maybe the market value of the guitar...

doesn't equal the labor fee required to bring it back to playability. Guitars are beautiful, too.

so nice do it twice

Some of our loose knit family travel far afield with their instruments, spending loads of their lives working far from home. They can become "porous with travel fever" (as Joni Mitchell said) and tend to become obsessive about certain things. Here Derek holds up a brace of Vox Starstreams. He's about to leave for six months or so, working as a roving karaoke singer on cruise ships. He's a happy guy. Happiness gets the best service.

impact adjustment

Recently a well-known guitar manufacturer released yet another version of one of their classic models, this time with circuitry and servo-motors installed that enable the instrument to tune itself. Since we are a warranty station it's not surprising that several of these guitars have passed through the shop. Today one particular instrument has defied all of our careful ministrations, requiring us to call the engineers who designed and built it. One of them suggested hitting it with a hammer (though not in the precise location shown in the picture).

sometimes it gets really busy

and we motivate ourselves by calling up the likes of old Aerosmith, AC-DC, Zodiac Mindwarp etc. Youtube videos to counter the insanity. Many of our clients are preparing for warm weather northern hemisphere tours and currently it's raining instruments. This doesn't mean that non-touring musicians get pushed aside. It means that we come in earlier and leave a little later than usual. And listen lots of trashy rock.

what if we ran out?

would we lose the will to live?

you're a busy musician

and you're coming in to pick up your completed instrument and maybe we decide to take a little extra time to fine tune it. And maybe you're traveling around with your kid...and maybe your kid wants to learn something about guitar repair. One of our long-time technicians, Leo, can help. He likes children and is a natural teacher. Here Lucy takes advantage of one of Leo's core competencies.

The customer is always right

Sometimes we might do a modification that goes against the grain, that doesn't exactly feel right. But we do it anyway because, well, maybe the owner of the guitar may be envisioning something conceptually that we can only guess at. Besides, it's impossible to judge relationships from the outside. Maybe the guitar had it coming.

more than the sum of your parts

It goes without saying that every guitar is different. What might be overlooked is that every player approaches their instrument differently. Here Gary is conferring with Tony about his brand new Gibson CS 336. We installed a new bone nut (an improvement upon the original) and, based on the way he plays, some adjustments are in order. To find out what those adjustments are requires some quality time talking about how the player plays. Gary is a good listener.

we don't lend tools

but if you ask nicely...

Is it a complement when

someone takes the time to email you a photograph from Paris because something they saw reminded them of you? Is it more of a complement if they take the time to photograph the thing that reminded them of you and send that photo along as an attachment in an email? And does it become so very much more a complement when that imagery is at once beautiful and chaotic?

Which is which?

It must have been cold (for San Francisco) that day

This building is old so we turn on tube amps for warmth. Gary is talking to Jack and David about Jack's Larrivee acoustic guitar. In the background an unidentified person looks up at guitars, slack-mouthed and astonished.

The Extreme Gibson Neck Break

This guitar was broken and repaired (by whom we do not know) before arriving at our shop for a second break along the exact same fracture. Since the joint could not be expected to hold if glued again a laminate is required. Here you can observe the progress. Tim removes about an eighth of an inch of wood (see the glued fracture in the 1st picture) from the back of the headstock and neck (to under the first fret), bends a piece of mahogany, glues the mahogany laminate to the guitar, completes the shaping and then matches the finish to the existing woodwork before reassembling. Ordinarily Tim would end the laminate just below the serial number. This guitar's number, however, had already been compromised.

Safety First

If you're going to use power tools, you've got to protect yourself. Here Gary is avoiding breathing spruce dust kicked up by his Dremel tool as he squares out the hole to fit the RMC Poly-Drive 1 into the the cavity of this Parker nylon string Fly electric guitar. These Parker/RMC installations are one of Gary's specialties.

does the external landscape reflect the internal?

So your spice rack is alphabetized and your t-shirts arranged by color...does that mean you tend to quantize your beat files? Or do you constantly wonder where everything is but have you looked at the area of the floor around your bed? Do you have a bowl of cereal in the kitchen and leave the milk, its opening gaping like a baby bird, sitting on the counter for the rest of day as bowls pile up at various locations around the apartment, the remains of your meal calcifying in the dry air and reflected sunlight? Does that mean you're in a jam band?

What does your patchbay tell us about you?