Dec 01 2014
I have a love/hate relationship with Rickenbackers. As a bassist, I absolutely LOVE the way they sound: many of my favorite records feature a Rick bass (such as King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King, and Tool’s Undertow). But, I really dislike many of Rickenbacker’s design elements, such as their folded truss rod system they used back …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/rickenbacker-broken-truss-rod-repair/
Nov 17 2014
Last week I took on a rather scary task: installing a Roland GK 3 Pickup into an expensive PRS guitar. Usually I’m asked to install these into people’s secondary, beater guitars – not their prized main instrument. Since installing a GK pickup typically requires some significant routing and electronics worth, it requires a brave soul …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/installing-roland-gk-3-pickup/
Oct 29 2014
My buddy Jeff “Guitar” Nelson is not gentle with his guitars. He’s a hard player, bends the strings off the neck, and has very strong hands which he uses to mangle his guitar to within an inch of it’s life. So it came as no surprise that he was having trouble with his three bolt …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/stabilizing-three-bolt-neck/
Oct 01 2014
This week I had a really cool early 1950s Supro Lap Steel guitar come in to the shop. The new owner, Jeb, had just recently picked it up cheap, and didn’t even know if it worked – because it had a vintage, screw-on type output jack, and the special cord for it was missing. In …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/lap-steel-jack/
Sep 23 2014
I’m back! Last week I took some much needed time off to hang out in New York – and as usual, I completely overdid it. There’s just something about NYC that causes me to fill every waking moment with non-stop action. While I was mostly there for rest & relaxation (which didn’t really happen), I …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/mr-strange-new-york/
Aug 05 2014
Carvin Guitars, I have a bone to pick with you. Don’t worry – it has nothing to do with the quality of your product. I admire the fact that you manage to make fairly high quality instruments at reasonable prices right here in America. In fact, I rarely have much to bitch about when it …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/replacing-carvin-pickups/
Jun 28 2014
One of the most difficult and complex jobs a guitar tech can be faced with is a neck reset. Acoustic guitars typically need to have their necks reset every several decades or so, as the 200 some-odd pounds of tension pulling on the neck at all times slowly pulls the neck forward, changing the angle …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/martin-neck-reset/
Jun 16 2014
Vacation’s over and now it’s time to get back to work! Before I left, I finished up a job for my friend John Fohl (who plays with the likes of Dr. John, Gatemouth Brown, & Bo Diddley) on his 1960s era Gibson LG-0. If memory serves me correctly, John told me he picked it up at …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/acoustic-bridge-reglue-fixing-cracks-brace-repair/
May 20 2014
There’s rarely a shortage of interesting jobs to showcase on this blog, so typically I’m posting every week or so. For the past month I’ve mostly been plugging away at a bunch of bread-and-butter type jobs: refrets, fret levels, setups, pickup installs, etc.; certainly stuff I enjoy doing, but as I’ve already covered these type …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/fixing-broken-truss-rod/
Apr 17 2014
The Fender Telecaster is just about the simplest electric guitar out there – a plank of wood screwed onto another hunk of wood with a bit of plastic and metal thrown in and viola! A Telecaster! It’s simplicity is what makes it great, but what if you want to mess with the formula a little …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.strangeguitarworks.com/installing-middle-pickup/
