the weather is changing (finally)

"read the schematic and tell me if it's right"
"I brought in the Best of Pixar Shorts"
"I'm surprised the Dylan has lasted this long"
"is 104 by 47 Dimarzio?"
"If we have it...go for it...we have to order some more"
"it is hot today!"
"I was gonna shave my eyebrows and draw on some other ones..."
"Leo!!!"
"I have an appointment with destiny, and she's ordered the lobster"
"that's not gay, it's nerdy"
"I only work here for the manly hijinks"
"plek has stopped"
"what's for lunch?"

We get notes

in the guitar cases, sometimes. Sometimes we find other things in the guitar cases but that's a story for another day. Anyway, the notes reveal something about the owner of the guitar but, more importantly, they tell us not only what the owner would like us to do with the guitar but also a little of how they feel about what they want us to do with their guitar. And even if it's weird (and in this town weird is good) we make it happen.

It's that busy

It was in the middle of a busy day when he came in, first with three cases and, after depositing those, returning with four more before following up with a final three. A total of ten guitars to drop off at one stroke and we already have a queue of over 175 instruments waiting their turn or in progress. For just the briefest moment I thought to suggest to him that a heads-up would have been considerate when I stopped. This is what we do. Juggling chainsaws is only a part of it.

We use this stuff

(and also conductive paint) to shield the backs of pickguards and the inside of pickup covers. Sheilding will help if there's a lot of resonant frequencies picked up by your guitar and then amplified. Sometimes, especially for our locals who live near the Godzilla-prop Sutro Tower in the middle of San Francisco, noise-to-signal ratio makes playing your electric guitar through your amp an unattractive audio experience. Our shop routinely performs full shielding on all manner of electric guitars and it makes a big difference. We're also supportive of the DIY crew, those that like to tinker inside their own instruments. If you are so inclined we sell conductive paint in 4 ounce containers. The copper tape can be acquired from shops that sell stained glass supplies.

This would be a cool looking amp

One light, one knob, one logo. Sadly, all those fabulous designs are now on the back bench, in the form of a hot plate, whose metal bowl is a double boiler for heating the wax we use to pot your pickup. Old is good, often.

Lurking behind the commonplace

are the weird ones. But we work on those too. Were not afraid of dead tech. We are the Reanimators!

It's a small shop...

and we make use of every square inch. Up to the ceilings and down among the corners, climbing up the back stairs and not uncommonly spilling out into the showroom area are guitars, parts of guitars and the myriad supplies to keep them up and running. Of course a guitar will occasionally play that cool game "Hide in Plain Sight" with us, prompting an all-out shop-wide search that always ends in "O! There it is right in front of me."

we've seen worse...

Say there's an old broken guitar in a beat-up case somewhere in a forgotten area where you stay. One day, looking for something else, you come across the thing, dust-covered and somewhat bent. Shaking your head you open the case for the second time in a decade. You ask yourself: what can be done with this thing?

The answer is obvious.

Have us restore the instrument! One time, several years ago, a person brought in his Grandfather's World War II-era Martin OOO-18 (not the above guitar). The sides, top, back and neck were either cracked, broken or simply loose inside a big black garbage bag. It took awhile but it was brought back to life; back to perfect playability, beautiful sound and museum-piece looks. Restore beauty to your surroundings: rescue a guitar.

current affairs

(anti-clockwise from top right) Here's Trevor installing a Lollar Charlie Christian-style pickup in the neck position of a Tele, Tim ascertaining that one of the coils in this classic Gibson humbucking pickup will need to be rewound and Gary dremeling out a section of the cavity milled in this Tricone to accept a Firebird pickup so that the player can use the instrument at band volume. Watching: Flight of the Conchords first season.

How to offend Tim...

Whoever attempted to repair the binding on this rare old acoustic guitar chudded the attempt to the point where Tim felt as if his reaction might lean toward violence if introduced. In the places where the binding was gone or broken through the silly person had ineptly and hilariously filled it in with putty prior to painting an approximation of the color pattern. Thankfully, Tim's disgust is channeled into the careful rescue of this fine old instrument. Here you can see his hands delicately guiding a chisel along the surface, before gluing in pieces of hand-died binding, tinted to match the untouched original section (seen here in the 3rd photo down).

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).