Gypsy Jazz Restoration

We recently took in a nameless gypsy jazz guitar in desperate need of restoration. We inspected the instrument inside and out for any identifying logos or serial numbers and came up with nothing. The label inside the guitar bears the words “Jazz Cutaway Hot”, and the rest of the ink has fell victim to the …

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Mr. Fred’s weird banjo thing

Our friend, Mr. PH Fred, always has the oddest guitars, and the oddest requests for modifications of those guitars. Last time, he had us turn an acoustic guitar into a Stratocaster (check it out here: Elvis Meets Nixon). This time, he made what seemed like a pretty easy request, to install a Lollar Charlie Christian …

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Elvis meets Nixon

The most requested document from the National Archives isn’t the Bill of Rights, nor even the Constitution – it’s this photo: Elvis meets Nixon. Yeah, it really happened. A bizarre moment in American history, to be sure – and one that inspired a madcap project here in our shop. Some background: one of our regular …

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Benjamin’s Fender Hello Kitty microtonal Strat of Doom™

I have an oft-repeated mantra at the shop: “Intonation is a social construct”. Over the last several hundred years, western music has largely standardized into an equal tempered system, dividing the octave into twelve notes with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (12√2 = 2 1⁄12 ≈ 1.059463)(12 tone equal temperament is also known as …

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VW Themed Maret Custom Guitar

Hey everyone! Aaron here. I’ll be using this month’s blog post to talk about a custom guitar project that we’re all pretty excited about. To give you a little background, I embarked upon my path of lutherie at a pretty young age under the instruction of my father, who has been a guitar maker since …

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Making an acoustic bridge for a vintage Martin

Building a great acoustic guitar is tricky business. One has to find the perfect balance between two opposing ideas: build a guitar that sounds good, or build a guitar that lasts. If the guitar is too solidly built, it won’t have any resonance and will sound terrible; if the guitar is too flimsy, it will collapse …

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Strange Guitarworks welcomes Dunlop Strings!

We are proud to announce that we are now an official dealer for Jim Dunlop strings! We restring a LOT of guitars, and we’ve found Dunlop strings to be among our favorites. They’re built really well, are extremely consistent, are generously long (handy for long scale & hollow body instruments), made in America, and the …

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Rebuilding a vintage Gibson acoustic guitar

We have the greatest job in the world: we play with guitars all day, and oftentimes get our grubby mitts on vintage instruments that we wouldn’t ever get to see as mere mortals. Occasionally we see vintage gear that looks almost brand new, but most times when an older instrument comes into our shop it …

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Fixing a broken headstock for The Revivalists

We do a lot of work for The Revivalists. Three of their seven members play electric, acoustic, and/or bass guitars, and as they seem to play them pretty hard and tour a LOT,  the band keeps us pretty busy. This week Zach brought in his vintage Guild Starfire, which had it’s headstock broken and then …

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A word from Aaron

Hey everyone, Aaron here. I’ve been repairing your instruments alongside Benjamin for the last 4 months, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of you in the shop by now. I’ve even seen some of you out on gigs around town! It’s been great getting to know you, the working musicians of New Orleans, …

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