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.

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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).

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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.