<![CDATA[Guitar Repairs, Restorations & Customisation by Lewis Durtnall - Repairs Blog]]>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:00:18 +0000Weebly<![CDATA[Happy New Year!]]>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/happy-new-year8645832Happy New Year, We hope everyone had a great one!
We’re now back open, since the beginning of the week, and already busy, with appointments for the month filling up fast!
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We're aware that this blog has been neglected compared to how much we used to post, as it is very time consuming, writing and editing each post. A long term goal for this year is to hopefully resuming sharing a highlight of some of the more in depth repairs that we have through the workshop!
For the meanwhile, we are still regularly sharing photos of the cool guitars/basses/ and other stringed instruments that come through our workshop, on our Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/TorbayGuitarRepairs

Thanks for all your ongoing custom and interest!
Cheers, Lewis ]]><![CDATA[Merry Christmas!]]>Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/merry-christmas5517444​We’re now closed until the New Year!
A massive thanks to all our customers and your recommendations, we wouldn’t be here without your support!
It’s certainly been a crazy year, but we’ve still be lucky enough to be busy working on many lovely guitars and basses, as well as other various stringed instruments!
Hope everyone has a great Christmas and we look forward to seeing new and familiar faces in the New Year!
Cheers!
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]]><![CDATA[Contact us form issues]]>Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:38:01 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/contact-us-form-issuesApologies, we’ve recently discovered that there’s an issue with our website Contact Us form!
We’re on the case to get it sorted, and will try and contact everyone who’s submitted a form that we’ve not responded too!
Please use our email Torbayguitarreapairs@live.co.uk direct for enquiries until we’ve sorted the issue!
Cheers


]]><![CDATA[Have a Great Festive Holiday!]]>Sat, 24 Dec 2022 22:58:32 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/have-a-great-festive-holidayWith the last guitar collected from the workshop today, that’s this year all wrapped up!
It’s been another crazy year and we take the opportunity to thank all our customers for your support, we wouldn’t be here without you. It’s been great working on lovely guitars, basses plus some other more unusual instruments!

We’ll still be posting photos up over the festive period on our Facebook page and keep your eye out for a fun give away we’ll be doing over the 12 days of Christmas on there too! If you've not already checked it out, please find the link is below and feel free to follow our page if you like our posts!
www.facebook.com/TorbayGuitarRepairs

We’re now closed until the New Year, although we’re already getting bookings for January so please do get in touch if you want to book in for a repair/service/customisation or restoration!
Hope you all have a great one and look forward to seeing you in the New Year!
Cheers, Lewis
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]]><![CDATA[Customer Announcement]]>Thu, 01 Sep 2022 23:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/customer-announcement6413573​As of the 1st of September, we are introducing a slight raise to our prices. We’ve thought about this long and hard and sadly due to the ever increasing costs of everything, we’ve had to do the same.
We still want our services to be affordable so anyone can have the opportunity to have their guitar/bass repaired, no matter the make/model or price and will work within set budgets if possible.
Our price list can be found here: www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/prices
Our most common repair, A full setup is now £45, with locking tremolo full setup now £55. This still involves a setup to your playing style at the bridge and the nut, adjusting the trussrod and setting the intonation if needed, along with setting the height of the pickups so the volume is balanced (on electric guitars/basses) and a full detail clean.
Anyone who already is on our waiting list, we will honour the prices originally quoted at point of contact.
We thank you all for your continued custom, wish you well and hope to see you whenever you need a guitar or bass sorted and don't forget to check out our Facebook page! ]]><![CDATA[New addition to the Torbay Guitar Repairs Family]]>Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/new-addition-to-the-torbay-guitar-repairs-familyWe’re back after having a short break due the birth of our new daughter! Apologies for the delay if you’ve contacted us, we will get back to you as soon as possible! ​]]><![CDATA[Back open for Repairs!]]>Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/back-open-for-repairs​We’re happy to announce that the workshop is officially reopened!
We’re really busy with a backlog and enquiries, so if you’ve contacted us, thank you for your patience and we’ll get you booked in as soon as we’re able to!
Don't forget to check out our Facebook page for all the latest repairs!
]]><![CDATA[Customer News]]>Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/customer-news​To all our customers, unfortunately Lewis has been unwell with a serious infection. After an extended stay in hospital he is recovering well.
We have made the decision to close the workshop until the New Year to focus on recovery. We’re sorry to anyone who’s needed urgent repairs.
We thank you for all your custom and understanding, we’ll still be posting photos of repairs that were done before our unexpected break!
We look forward to seeing you in the New Year!]]><![CDATA[Follow our Facebook page for our latest repairs!]]>Thu, 29 Jul 2021 22:52:57 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/follow-our-facebook-page-for-our-latest-repairsWe're still busy in the workshop and working on something new behind the scenes, so apologies for the lack of posts. Remember we regularly upload our latest repairs on our Facebook page:
 www.facebook.com/TorbayGuitarRepairs
​so don't forget to visit and follow thanks! 
Happy playing!]]><![CDATA[Intonation Musings]]>Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:37:47 GMThttps://www.torbayguitarrepairs.co.uk/repairs-blog/intonation-musingsA bit of a different blog post, apologies to our regular blog followers, with everything that has been going on and our busy workload we've fallen behind with our posts. We will be slowly catching up and backdating our posts for the monthly repairs. Don't forget to follow us on our Facebook page as we regularly post photos of our latest repairs through the workshop. 

In the meantime, we thought we'd share some information on intonation, below is our reply to a customer during a conversation about intonation on his mandolin. We though we would post it here to hopefully this shed some light on this topic.

'Intonation is a funny thing, and it’s very easy to get caught up with it and get obsessed with it being perfect. Sadly the truth is it will never be 100% on basically any fretted instrument. The fretboard is basically one big compromise, taking the guitar as an example, intonation basically isn’t correct on any string fretted or even open. It’s still based on a design from 100 plus years ago where digital tuners weren’t invented. As the notes sounded ‘in tune’ at the time of the manufacture, the design was viewed as perfect to use. The whole design is essentially one big compromise.
 
Although technology has progressed, the design has remained the same to this day (except for the compensated fretboard). All players have grown used to the way the guitar sounds so unless the player has perfect pitch, the player normally cannot hear the minor differences in pitch on each note. The only time these issues normally arise is during recording using modern ‘plug ins’ where the computer can pick up these issues. Although the compensated fretboard does deliver each fret in theoretical perfect pitch, it sometimes cannot be useful when playing with other instruments, as they sounds slightly out if the ear can hear the differences (unless all the instruments have the same compensated board).
 
Also to add into the mix, intonation can hugely be affected by how hard the player pressed down on the frets and how hard they strike the strings. For example a guitar with jumbo tall frets, if a player presses down very hard when playing, the string actually gets stretched slightly over the fret, which causes it to go sharp. The string gauge and the age of the strings can also affect intonation too, along with the pitch they are tuned to. Yet again this is down to the tension of the strings. The age of the strings can also affect intonation as they decay over time.
 
With all this said however, any string instrument should be intonated so that it sounds in tune to the ear and basically in tune with a guitar tuner (most tuners compensate slightly for the fluctuation). If a string is reading sharp at the 12th fret (or mid point between the nut and the bridge saddle) then the string length needs to be extended slightly. If the string is flat, the string length needs to be shortened slightly. The most common way to test intonation is to play the harmonic at the 12th and it should match the fretted 12th note, ideally this should also match the open played note although this isn’t always the case with ever instrument.'

​If you're concerned about the intonation on your instrument, please get in touch with us and we'll be happy to arrange booking in your instrument. Thanks for reading!]]>