round and round

Here's Tim rewinding an odd old pickup from an odd old guitar. The guitar, an Ovation Breadwinner, presented with no output at the neck pickup. Deeper exploratory inquiry led to the conclusion that one of the two coils that comprise the humbucker pickup was dead, it's thin red copper wire separated at some point along the 3500 feet wound around the Alnico (Aluminum Nickel Cobalt) magnet. Tim has engaged the services of our Schatten pickup winder for this patience game.

clever and time saving

Trevor has fabricated a device to speed the process of bringing up to pitch the many strings of Gibson SG double neck guitar. In this particular example the headstocks are close enough to each other so as to hamper access to some of the tuning pegs. Here is Trevor operating his device.

cluttered bench: a sign of a creative...

...mind.

Gary is incorporating mu metal, magnets, controlled voltage, black magic and not a little sonorous incantation to reconfigure a fantastically complex wiring harness that includes (but is not necessarily limited to) a sustainer system and a MIDI system as well as the usual electromagnetic pickups; all artfully crammed into the electronics cavity of this otherwise distracted custom-made solid body electric guitar. Naturally some divination is called for, and Gary has spread his hermeneutic material in the most appropriate place: on top of the guitar.

Note to self: Research instrument anesthetics. Do guitars feel? Would it be appropriate to limit a guitar's purported sentiency during a repair or modification?

"it's exactly what I hoped for"

That's Rob M. spontaneously expressing his satisfaction. His early 60's Stratocaster has benefitted with the addition of a Callaham replacement tremolo. The reason this particular modification makes sense is that many of the older Fender vintage instruments had saddle sets that spread the strings too wide over the fretboard making them easily slide off the edge during play. This particular Callaham tremolo (they have several flavors) has the same six mounting screw hole arrangement as most vintage Fenders but with slightly narrower string spacing. This means we can move the strings inboard slightly without having to cut into the wood at all, which is very appealing to anyone.

We have all kinds of ideas to make guitars better.

even Satan needs love

This heavy, monstrous seven string custom built electric solid body guitar is being plekked. Even though it is the Instrument of the Devil, and it's owner wields the mighty sword of its demonic power while channeling the Forces of Doom, this Avatar of the Seventh Level of Hades is not above improving its ability to give amplification to the Voices of Darkness by receiving the tender loving care provided by the Angels of Mercy in the Glorious Heavens of Guitar Joy-Peace. Indeed, by forging together in our little Stupa of Shred the mighty Energies of Darkness with the Omnipotent Universal Lovelight true Sonic Satori is realized.

hot hot hot!

This bass is more than merely distressed. Here Gary is installing the owner's standard EMG pickups and Bartolini preamp system used in most of his instruments. To match the look of this Flamethrower bass Gary whips out a handy dandy butane lighter (no bench should be without one) and is gleefully melting plastic.

if you can't fix it with a hammer...*

Occasionally a particular task calls for the Barbarian Approach. In this case Glade desires a used and somewhat corroded chrome output jack plate to be flat. It's original shape was slightly curved, not unlike the space time continuum and, like that hypothesis, while charming and elegant in it's consciousness/sentiency reality construct, not reliably serviceable for installation on a flat surface. Happily Glade is not afraid to get down with a hammer, but note his use of the rug to dampen and control the effect of the blow. In the time it took to take this photograph it was ascertained that Glade was facing southwest.

* it's either not broken or you need a bigger hammer.

darkness at the edge of SoMa

At about 4:20PM (heh) all the power went out in a several block radius around the shop. We trooped outside, hung out for awhile and took in some sun; all except for Gary that is, who hurried right back inside and, with the aid of a headset and a battery powered soldering iron, continued working. Such dedication, such fortitude! It was interesting, wandering around looking at all the instruments and thinking that now would be a good time to plug some guitars into some amps because the phone has stopped ringing and we can't do any work anyway but O! that's right...there's no power. Hmpf. Power was restored a little while later and then it seemed inordinately dark in the shop after all that sun outside.

The sunlit outside group shot below (R to L): Trevor, Allen, Tim, Fernie, Glade, Gary and a friend on his way to the ballpark.

































































In other news: Our little blog is being blogged about! Ava at Jemsite took the time to ask us a few questions and we answered in our way that we have. Take a look at: http://www.jemsite.com/blog/43-general/807-daily-guitar-repair.html

busman's holiday

Here's Trevor installing a Sadowsky bass preamp kit into a brand new Fender Jazz Marcus Miller signature bass guitar. Trevor spent five years in Brooklyn, NYC, slaving in the dungeons of Sadowsky (actually it was a great job!) and only recently (if you call three years recent) made his great escape to California, where, after many adventures, he ultimately landed here. And here is his past, tracking him down. Luckily he's got a lot of experience at this particular task and things went smoothly.

the frying of the chip...

...a wafer of silicon delaminates within a microlayer of the preamp chip in an Ibanez bass guitar (it can happen to anyone). Current shorts through the emulsion to where current doesn't belong. It burns. Smoke is probably involved and an acrid stench, which can be disheartening.

We replaced the preamp.

"I pity inanimate objects..."

The re-org has cast a merciless light upon the packrat living in all of us. And, because space is limited (to say nothing of time), objects, parts or devices that have outlived their usefulness or are merely dead must by needs be jettisoned.

(it was gone one hour later)

theme song: "...physics isn't fair...is the tree as a rocking horse an ambition fulfilled and is the sawdust jealous? I worry about these things..." (Godley & Creme)

working conditions

Sometimes we forget what the weather's doing....we used to have a handful of small windows but, with the advent of condominium building on the street where we live, even that marginal source of daylight is banished. All that's left is what appears to be a once a year event; the surrounding architecture on earth lines up with the sun, and in the back of the shop, Tim's eyeball sees the light.

(Tim's eyeball)

theme song: "...a tiny light from a windowpane a hundred yards away, is all he ever gets to know about the regular light of the day..." (Zappa)

you can't do it alone...

...and when we need arcane wisdom from the bizarre tech worlds beyond our ordinary capacity we go straight for the source. We go to men who have been there. Men who have returned from there with the hard won wisdom of experience. Men with large brains and great powers. We go to the technological wizards of the electromagnetic signal path.

(Gary, flanked by George Munday [L] & Kirkwood Rough)

theme song: "...lowkey discussions - rumble round the testbed - eggheads in a huddle..." (Godley & Creme)

samurai sherpa of shred

The re-org is shifting the shop topography. At the center of our tectonic organizational transformation is this man. Tirelessly moving objects from one place to another in an actualized desire of a more efficient operational capacity, he protects himself with a unique system of vestments designed for maximum utility, comfort and style.

In this candid photograph Fern attends as Gary (off camera) expounds.

waste not...

We may not have a smelter at the shop (maybe it's time for a portable cold fusion smelter manufactured using sustainable materials, processes and labor) but we recognize a reuseable resource when we see it. We go through about seven pounds of this stuff a month.

there are many choices for pickups

don't ask...

it's a look!

Robert P., on his way to work, sporting his notorious shiny kitchen clogs and clutching a strange hybrid. As the head chef of two popular local restaurants (Bungalow 44 and The Buckeye) he's under a lot of pressure. It's important to be able to blow off steam in a creative and life affirming way.

ouch!

an improvised guitar string acupuncture...Trevor's finger after he reached down to the floor to pick up a screw that was heading to the "floorth" dimension.

Part 2 of "Man I can't put this thing down."

"This thing is so cool, it just pops in out of its screwed in magnet holster. I went out and bought a bass amp last night, sounds really good. I must have played it for 5 hours yesterday. Instrument repair is the happiest place in the world!"

Here are some photographs of the removable prototype Gary fabricated as a pickup modification for an upright bass.

"Man, I can't put this thing down."

Gary fabricated a prototype panel to slide under the fingerboard of this acoustic bass which, with volume pots attached, controls the individual output of three (count 'em three!) discrete pickups on this upright bass. He's running it through several different amplifiers, each pickup in a different amp, and bowing it with, what he terms: "super milky tremolo," and a bit of distortion and reverb.


And then he put the stuffy on the bridge and took it to a whole new level.

use what you've got

Here Tim has ingeniously attached the mouth of the vacuum close to the business end of a dremel cutting wheel. It's not uncommon for an old nut to require being cut out of the slot. This causes a lot of particulate matter to be ejected into the close atmosphere of the shop. Having the vacuum handy and running limits the amount of bone dust we breathe. Remember that sharp, gagging smell while the dentist is drilling on your teeth?

testimonials on a busy day

In five years we've never seen it this busy...but we're not complaining.

"Plays better then when I got it" - Dave P.'s (with Gary) Spector bass

"Plays like it should've when I bought it" - Steve V.'s Gibson 336

"It's exactly what I wanted" - Sean B.'s (with his biggest fan) Martin D-41

And in the course of regular conversation we got to turn on one of our players (not pictured) to a piece of music by Kate Bush whose name and subject matter ("Hammer Horror") mirror his band's name. He became immediately enthusiastic to cover that song.

help in a hurry

Here Gary is discussing with Mark Ribot some adjustments to his Gibson Melody Maker to be effected in a Big Hurry. Mark has a show tonight in SF. The open high E string was vibrating (sometimes we refer to that sound as "sitaring") where it went over the saddle and the bridge itself had an odd and not groovy sympathetic vibration. Gary used a diamond file to correct the saddle slot and added a small piece of wood to tilt the tailpiece forward thereby increasing the downward pressure of the string in the saddle. Gary also added a pair of Hipshot locking studs to hold the bridge firmly in place.

Mark made it to the soundcheck on time.

A stiletto heel...

...kicked through the back of this Martin steel string acoustic has made a little hole. Does it correspond to a hole in her heart? Did he have it coming? Regardless, we'll fabricate a wooden pad to reinforce the area. The hole won't disappear but the instrument's structural integrity will not be compromised, and the sound of the guitar will not be decreased. Don't know if the relationship can be saved, however...a different kind of shop works on that stuff.

routing...

Here's Tim working with plastic to create several color and material variations of a specific pickguard shape. The owner wants to see what various pickguard colors look like against the body and color of his instrument. We can fabricate almost any kind of pickguard (materials, color, shape, etc...) for a guitar. Look at those hands!

one of these things is not like the other....

Alright, very amusing of course, but did you know??

Here Gary is holding is an extremely rare Kramer guitar called an Enterprize. Designed by the notorious Floyd Rose, it is highly prized by the distinctly unique breed of collectors that find these instruments desirable. A grand total of ten of these eye-catching devices are thought to have been made. With such delicacy of design something this fragile could break so easily (indeed that's why we have it - for some light touchup) that the number of remaining examples are probably considerably less.

Take a solo that boldly goes.

do we not bleed?

And do we not sigh as well? Thanks for your notes. We never take it for granted.

it didn't sound like this at the shop

There's a lot of reasons to play your guitar in a public place. You can hear how it sounds in very reflective environments, help to pass the time while your friend trades in his de-magnetized train pass for one that works, or maybe even get some lunch money. Here Trevor patiently strums a wistful tune in the Civic Center station in San Francisco, CA.

kits, cats, sacks, wives....

There are thousands of guitars and each guitar can have anywhere from fifty to three hundred parts. When you, dear owner, inquire via email or telephone about the availability of a particular (non-vintage) part for a particular guitar ninety-nine times out of one hundred we will beg to see the instrument. Though it takes up some of your valuable time the diagnostic or recommendation is free (you only need pay for the part) and you get to enter into our cave of musical toys.

the vestigial limb

Lying, momentarily forlorn on the workbench, at an odd angle and still in the neck-rest, does this neck, awaiting reattachment to its body, still feel, like an amputee, itself as a complete instrument?

the alchemical mage

Here's Tim calling down the spirits in his sekret lair while retorts bubble and the jacob ladder fizzes quietly in the background. The steam in the foreground is for breaking the bonds of neck and body on an acoustic guitar. Tim manipulates materials, bending the elements to his will.

personal expression taken to extremes

This decimated Telecaster is the result of the owner becoming excited during a performance. When the smoke cleared, appalled by what remained, he quickly became contrite. Tim spent a little time with the pieces and judged that it was possible to reassemble and refinish, though the trained eye would still see some evidence of the repair.

D.I.Y.

Here's Gary taking matters into his own hands regarding an upgrade being foisted upon a recalcitrant iMac. While we love our Mac network (we remember our 512E w/ no hard drive!) we also recognize that, like love, a certain amount of capricious whimsicality is involved ("Macs Happen") and occasionally are inspired to take steps.

the wood burned Aztec basses

Here's Tim (all the way below) holding a wood-burned bass destined for stages around the world (see man onstage). The man liked it so much he brought us another one to do the same thing once again (the other three).

Tim applied the burst style finishes by hand with a special blend of shellac and dye. Once the finishes are complete he installs all the hardware, wires it up according to the owner's unique tastes prior to a computerized fretmill on the PLEK machine.

These instruments play like cheese dreams.

see notes

Here Gary has taken detailed notes and loose estimates based on the owner's desire to have the wiring harness, pickup system and hardware of one of his custom instruments perform certain tasks in specific ways. Thankfully Gary can decode as well as encode. An attractive frame may set off the piece to maximum effect...say, displayed near the guitar wall.