close work

Per instructions, Gary is recutting saddle slots to bring the high E string of this lefty Gibson ES 335 very slightly farther out to the edge of the fretboard. Naturally once one string has been repositioned the other strings will have to be moved to keep spaces between all the strings even. Gary is wearing helpful StewMac eyewear.

Information on Spacing

There are 3 main types of spacing between the strings. This is at the nut as well as the saddle.

1st The measurement between each adjacent string is equal.

(the center to center measurement will increase as you go from treble to bass)

2nd The measurement from center to center of each adjacent string is the same.

(the space between the string will shrink as you go from treble to bass)

3rd The hybrid of the 2, and the most preferred.

In this method the measurement between the strings gradually becomes wider as the string width becomes wider, splitting the difference between the first two.

(this method looks the most even and natural and we default to this)

Trivia.....Jerry Garcia was very specific about having the space between the strings equal. I found this out after I delivered my first scalloped brass nut to him on one of the early Doug Irwin guitars. I brought the guitar to him at the Shoreline venue which was the Dead's regular haunt. It was Steve (Jerry's tech and all around go-to guy), Jerry and myself. We were in his tent at the back of the stage before the show started. I handed the guitar to Jerry as he was preparing for the show. He looked it over really close and we talked about the guitar and guitar nuts and spacing for about half an hour as he played and warmed up. Jerry was very knowable and articulate. He usually knew what to ask for.

He went on the play the guitar most of the night and I went on to re-cut a few nuts with the equal between the string spacing. That was a fun night.

We went on to experament with pickups and midi systems and wiring as he had different ideas about what we wanted to try.

it's Tuesday...hmmm...

what shall I wear today?

help for the touring musician.

It's not uncommon for us to receive a frantic phone call from a harried tour manager requesting immediate assistance for a malfunctioning guitar. Usually the problem presents itself during soundcheck and someone standing around at the venue is delegated to rush the instrument to us where we do our best to keep the show going. We have been known to work miracles.

photo: Some needs of the road are found elsewhere.

Rebuilding a sitar friction tuning peg

The customer had a little accident and tipped the sitar over to the tune of a broken tuner. Lucky for us they had the original half of the tuner to work from. Here Tim grafts a new post onto the original handle of the tuner. The tuners have to fit on the tight side since friction holds them in place not a gear. The trick was to come up with a way to keep the new piece from twisting off when tuning. You can see the new wood is "keyed" into the old piece to give it some rotational strength. Then fit to the sitar with a peg shaver. Good as new!!!

One of the nice things...

...about our free fine tuning period (six months for set-ups and one year for all fretwork) is that while you wait you can wander the aisles of amps, guitars and pedals in the space we share with Real Guitars (a vintage instrument shop).

Like a kid in a candy store.

the more specifics we get...

...the higher the likelihood of success.

Tell us everything.

a volume knob for a new century

it's time.

it's okay to take your strings seriously

Here's Ned D., one of our extended shop family, and a set of bass strings that he feels very strongly about.

The thing is: we'll work with you to get your instrument exactly how you want it to be, with your string choice, your tuning and taking into account how you like to play. In our world one size does not fit all.

moving our work offshore?

No! But Gary displays an unexpected talent for restringing, tuning and even (almost) playing this sitar. And, interestingly enough, it's an Indian classical instrument, not a folk instrument.

Timmy Pizza, in the news.

Timmy Renato Pizza

Adding a bridge Pickup to a Telecaster Bass

We were asked to add a bridge pickup to this single pickup stock Fender Tele bass.

You get a-lot of bang for your buck with this mod. The bridge pickup not only lets you add high end but when both pickups are on together they act together as a hum canceling pair. We were also asked to wire it like a 60's Jazz Bass with 2 dual concentric pots, or "stack-pots". The upper knobs being a volume for each pickup the lower pots are the tone for each pickup.

did we mention...

Fearless Leader got hitched!

(photo: Steve Maller)

Tim does it again...

Here Tim has fabricated an entire back for the body of this venerable Guild D40 (presented in a shocking condition and documented in our Friday, December 4th, 2009 blog entry). Not only has Tim cut and fitted the piece perfectly, he's done it using the original braces, the original binding and, to top it off, saving and reapplying the original label on the inside.

Don't think for a second that just because your guitar is smashed almost beyond recognition that it can't be resuscitated! We've had guitars come to us in garbage bags and depart in museum quality. Tim especially relishes this kind of work.

new new new!!!

two (2) new signs are up at the shop today!

ps: this is our 300th post...woo!

Godin Multiac jack board repair.

The Godin Multiac is a great value in a multi function guitar.

It runs off the RMC guitar system which is one of the best guitar midi

systems. On this guitar one of the contacts on the jack had broken off, this is a very rare problem. The jack-board holds the 13pin jack for midi or VG control and the

1/4" jack for the acoustic sound output.

There are 6 contacts soldering the jack to the circuit board which

are easily opened up to put on the new one and we are good to go.

Repairing collapsed bridge stud inserts.

The wood that holds the bridge stud inserts upright has broken forward, and the bridge has began to tip. You can usually tell something is wrong when the bridge starts to rub or overlap the pickguard. We often see this happen on guitars that have had Floyd Rose bridges retrofitted into them and on Strat Plus 2 stud bridges. Many times there just is not enough wood in front of the insert to hold the studs in place or the wood is soft Alder or the holes have been oversized .......

There are a few ways to skin this cat (ouch) In this repair we pulled the studs and glued up all of the broken wood. We pressed the studs back in but had to come up with a way to keep it from breaking forward again. We countersunk a flat piece of graphite in front of the bridge stud inserts to hold them in place and put in some long screws deed into solid wood to hold it in place. This is a very solid repair and have not seen any fail.

Fender Jaguar / Jazzmaster Mastery Guitar Bridge

from the front

from the top

Building on the already spiffy Fender Jaguar is a small company called "Mastery" which, if the hype can be believed, supplies the Best Bridge Going for this popular guitar. Strings don't slip around in the saddles and the bridge doesn't rock back and forth in the body. Notes played on a guitar using this bridge are fuller and clearer. Subjective opinion, of course, but we're like that. This piece of hardware is solid as a rock. And, it comes with a handy stash bag for your chronic.

Check 'em out: www.masterybridge.com.

the old one

the stash bag

Tim likes!

Ibanez JS-1000 Painting Metallic Silver

The Ibanez JS 1600 comes in a very cool metallic silver finish. Brian's JS-1000 was only available in black. Our mission (which we did indeed choose to accept) was to convert anything and everything black to silver. First we asked Dimarzio to custom make us Mo' Joe and PAF Joe pickups with silver bobbins. The Ibanez logo was custom cut out for us in black, instead of silver (so the logo would bump from a silver background). The silver paint is actually a fine metal flake material mixed into the clear finish material and then built up on the body. The tuners, bridge, nut, knobs, strap buttons, pickup rings, screws and all the black hardware were swapped out for silver. The newer Ibanez Edge tremolo bridge was changed back to the original Edge 2 trem. The countersink for the trem was a little bigger so we did that prior to painting. It was a lot of work and came out beautifully.

This is the original Black JS-1000

Installing a Sadowsky Pre-Amp hidden in a Fender Jazz Bass

Mr. Crumpler is a working bassist with a fondness for the Fender Jazz. This instrument, his most recent acquisition, needed a wider frequency range and higher output to suit his style of playing and match his tone appeal. Trevor removed the stock pickups and preamp, and installed an ivory (color, silly, not illegal endangered species materials!) EMG J Bass pickup set. Under the hood, he wired in a Sadowsky preamplifier and routed the back of the body to accept a battery box.

Mr. Crumpler tells us that the end result has turned the original signal upside down!

nuff said...

Dead at 57: Doug Fieger

Mr. Fieger and band, The Knack, blew the doors off the pop music world in the summer of 1979 with the longest running single of the year and possibly the cheapest. Recorded, mixed, and ready to ship in eleven days, the first album by The Knack "Get The Knack" was purported to have cost a mere $18,000. It went gold thirteen days after its June 11th, 1979 release, staying at the top of the charts for six weeks in a row.

Twenty-seven years later we received a telephone call from Mr. Fieger. He was curious to learn if we could PLEK & set-up thirteen guitars, which he would be willing to drive from his home in Los Angeles up to our shop in San Francisco. The only catch: we had to do it very quickly. We agreed and Mr. Fieger arrived in early April of 2006 in a small European station wagon completely stuffed with thirteen hardshell cases; each one containing a brand new, American made Gibson solid body electric guitar.

After getting the details for his instruments it came out in conversation that Gary And Mr. Fieger grew up in the same neighborhood, with Mr. Fieger preceeding Gary by a mere three years (a lot of time when you're a teenager). They knew the same bands, the same pizza joints, and the same hangout areas. After a long and amiable discussion about the merits of a youth spent in Detroit's Northern suburbs during the late Sixties and early Seventies, Mr. Fieger returned to his home in Los Angeles and we folded his array of instruments into our already full schedule.

Several days later, and running out of time, we brought to bear every resource we possessed to complete the thirteen instruments in time, even briefly shutting down the shop for all other projects.

Four years ago, in Spring, Mr Fieger pulled up with his station wagon and we loaded him up with his completed guitars. He expressed regret that he did not live closer to us, as he would've returned often. As it was, he left for his planned tour and we never saw him again. We mourn his passing.

Sustainer install in copypasta Les Paul type guitar

The guitar in the above photographs is actually an "Agile" and is a pretty darn nice copy of the Gibson Les Paul "Axis." The Axis itself is a copy, by Gibson guitars, of their own custom artist series guitar: the Neal Schon Les Paul. The Axis (and also the guitar in these photos) features the Floyd Rose and neck heel cut-away of the Neal Schon Les Paul but does not include the Sustainer circuit and custom knob layout. The owner wanted to modify this copy of a copy to be as close to the Gibson NS guitar as possible (at a fraction of the purchase price of an actual Gibson NS LP). To accomplish this modification we moved the master volume knob to more of a strat-oriented position so it would be easy to do volume swells. The other three controls became: a passive tone control, a sustainer gain pot and a Chandler Tone-X (a wah-wah on a push pull pot). Now the owner can sustain an infinite note, change the pitch anywhere along the string length while simultaneously making a wha-wha sound.

Talk about multi-tasking!

Amazing Guitar Paint

This is a beautiful example of how detailed and beautiful a guitar paint job can be. This was painted for our customer by Daneen. She has done work for many a guitarist and has mad skills. We took the guitar apart, prepped the body and then reassembled and set up the guitar upon completion.