Dec 04 2015
Recently, a client of mine named Bruce went to see ZZ Top in New Orleans. Being huge ZZ Top fan, he snagged a VIP pass, which amongst other things gained him an audience with Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill. How cool is that?! He had heard that ZZ Top has a policy of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/protecting-a-signature-on-a-guitar/
Nov 16 2015
I really like the science, math, and theory behind guitar work. I feel that it’s important to understand what’s happening with a guitar on a fundamental level, and this helps me analyze and fix complex problems. However, there are some jobs that require more art than science, and making a bone saddle is one of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/making-a-bone-saddle/
Aug 24 2015
Go fretless USA! Seriously, is there anything cooler than a fretless bass? I was an exclusively fretless player for years – first doing a fretless conversion on my old Peavy B-Quad 4, and later defretting my number one bass, my 1974 Ovation Magnum. Urban myth may say that Jaco yanked the frets out of his bass …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/fretless-conversion-2/
Aug 08 2015
If I may interrupt this guitar repair blog with a shameless plug: I present to you, my friends, the newest work from my musical project, UFO Death Cult. I’ve been working on this record off and on for the past 3 years, and quite simply, it’s the most difficult thing I have ever done. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/new-music-from-my-musical-project-ufo-death-cult/
Jun 18 2015
Hey, everybody – I’ve got somebody I’d like you to meet. This handsome fella here is my good friend, Mr. Scott Morgan, from Helsinki, Finland. Scott is an amazing guitar tech and luthier, who deserves the credit/blame for getting me into this whole fixing guitars thing. I met Scott way back in my Werlein’s for …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/say-hello-to-scott/
May 15 2015
Removing and replacing a fretboard – sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? Yes, it can be complicated, and it needs to be done with extreme precision, but it isn’t a scary of a project as it sounds. I recently completed a giant project on an old Silvertone acoustic guitar, which had previously been rehabilitated elsewhere. The neck had …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/removing-replacing-fretboard/
Mar 31 2015
I do a fair bit of neck resets in my shop. It’s a pretty common job, and just about every acoustic guitar needs a neck reset during it’s lifetime – the strings pull the neck forward, and eventually the neck/body joint needs to be re-carved to get the neck back to the proper angle. I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/national-resonator-neck-reset/
Feb 09 2015
Oh man, I’m sure to catch hell for this one – it’s not every day that somebody does a massive modification to one of the rarest of vintage guitars out there. Yes, I’ll admit it: I just completed a neck reset on a 1952 Gibson Les Paul. First, a little history: Gibson introduced the Les …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/1952-gibson-les-paul-neck-reset/
Jan 22 2015
It’s amazing to think that almost 10 years after Hurricane Katrina forever altered the city of New Orleans, I’m still fixing up guitars that were damaged by the storm. Recently my buddy John Lisi brought me an old Teisco Del Rey EV-2T that had spent a few weeks floating in the flood waters that destroyed his home in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/teisco-del-rey-rescue/
Jan 06 2015
I deal with a lot of bellied guitar tops in my shop. Many acoustic guitars develop a bulge at the bridge, where the string tension has pulled the top up and caused the action to be excessively high. This is extremely common and usually isn’t something worth worrying about too much – it’s usually a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/bridge-plate-overlay/
