Hi, I'm Aaron. I'm a custom guitar builder and stringed instrument repair tech by trade, and a musician and stage tech by night. I write and record original music under the moniker Atomic Tortoise, I co-founded the New Orleans rock trio War Bunnies, and I play bass in the Southern swamp rock band Them Ol' Ghosts. And when my hands aren't on a guitar, I'm probably out riding motorcycles somewhere...
Jan 23 2025
We tend to write blog posts about projects that we find interesting or unique in some way, but that’s not typically how our days go. Most of what we do is routine guitar maintenance. Instruments need to be serviced at regular intervals – much like oil changes, brake pads and tire rotations on your car. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/acoustic-guitar-neck-reset/
May 27 2024
We all love Gibson guitars. Gibson is a seminal contributor to rock and roll history and some of their designs (like our two personal shop favorites, the Explorer and the Firebird) are among the coolest guitars ever made. Period. But it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room: the Gibson headstock design. Repairing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/repairing-a-broken-gibson-headstock-and-adding-a-volute/
Mar 04 2024
You don’t see these everyday! A while back our buddy Mark brought us his vintage Martin 0-18K (koa) for a refret, which is usually a very run-of-the-mill job for us here – except for one thing. This instrument comes from a bygone era when C.F. Martin guitars were made using bar frets. Bar frets differ …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/bar-refret-on-a-vintage-martin/
Oct 03 2023
Woodworking can be a tedious process that requires patience, preparation and precision to execute well. Oftentimes we see examples of someone taking a more, uh… expeditious route. Like this guitar: someone attempted to modify this Floyd Rose cavity to fit a different style bridge that it wasn’t designed for, with less than stellar results. Maybe …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/repairing-a-floyd-rose-route/
Jun 13 2023
Recently, our pal Mike Keller came into the shop with an interesting object accompanied by an interesting request. The object in question was a solid rectangular slab of blue molded epoxy with a fragment of wood suspended within, like an ancient mosquito in amber. He told us the wood was a Native American artifact – …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/bo-diddley-inspired-custom-guitar/
Mar 21 2023
If you’ve ever owned hollow-body jazz guitar with a floating bridge, you know the perils of changing the strings without accidentally moving the bridge placement. Even scarier, the bridge is also able to slide around the top of the guitar under full string tension if bumped, potentially throwing off your string alignment and intonation, causing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/pinning-a-floating-bridge/
Nov 07 2022
When you play a Gibson Thunderbird on stage the way it’s supposed to be played, you’re probably going to break it at some point – and that’s okay! That means you’re doing it right and rocking out. This particular bass had the instrument cable stepped on during a gig (always loop your cable around your …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/output-jack-repair-on-a-gibson-thunderbird/
Jun 07 2022
I honestly don’t know how many broken headstocks I’ve repaired over the years. But I can tell you that when I first started doing this 20 some-odd years ago I wasn’t fixing broken headstocks with splines and a backstrap overlay – it was more like a single C-clamp and some wood glue. Boom. Done! Maybe …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/fixing-a-broken-headstock-with-splines-and-a-backstrap-overlay/
Mar 21 2022
Inside nearly every modern guitar and bass neck is a truss rod: a long, adjustable steel rod designed to counteract string tension on the neck. Without it your guitar strings will eventually bend your instrument’s neck into an unplayable banana-shaped object. They are usually pretty sturdy, but if they are abused they can sometimes break. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/removing-and-replacing-a-broken-truss-rod/
Dec 20 2021
Back in the 1980s, guitarists were cutting holes into their instruments for double-locking bridge systems like their Aqua Net was cutting holes into the Ozone layer. A popular choice among them was the Kahler Vibrato System: a stationary-mounted bridge with a cam-operated vibrato arm that allows for all the squeals and dive bombs a Spandex …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/filling-a-kahler-route-on-a-vintage-gibson-flying-v/
