Blog Archives

Summer Repairs

31/8/2017

We've been kept out of mischief in the workshop again this month with some lovely guitars to repair and customise

We're never too busy to repair or customise your guitar and always happy to help, so please get in touch for a quote if you want to get your guitar back to its playing best!

Happy playing!

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Vintage Kay Bass Bridge Replacement

27/8/2017

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This vintage Kay bass was brought in for a restoration. The customer wanted the bridge replaced to allow precise adjustments of the action and the intonation over the old bridge.
The metal cover for the old bridge was long gone, showing the crude design that normally was hidden away.
Sourcing a replacement bridge was a tough challenge as the bass was a short scale with a very narrow neck.
As it turned out the only suitable replacement without spending a huge amount was a bridge suited for a Danoelectric bass.

The first step was marking out the position of the old bridge and checking that the replacement would fit. As it was a different shape, some hole filling and careful positioning was required.
Next job was checking the position of the new bridge, adjsutments were made to line up the string spacing with the neck, as well as checking the scale length position.
The bridge needed all its screws and grub screws replacing, to allow the bridge to sit properly on the slimline body, and have the action set so the strings weren't resting on the fretboard.
The bass was then restrung and setup with the correct intonation. You can see how much it was out before with the positions of the saddles. The bridge placement meant that only one of the plugged holes was visible.

The last job on the list was changing an old screw that was being used as a strap button.
A vintage style button replaced the old screw, then after the bass had a full detail clean, it was ready for it's customer to collect

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Custom Relic finish on Fender Stratocaster

17/8/2017

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This Fender USA Stratocaster was recently in the workshop for a custom relic finish.
This process is all done by hand rather than machine, to ensure the most accurate results and authentic finish.

The first process is the guitar is completely stripped down to allow easy access to the body and neck for the ageing process to begin. After a consultation we knew exactly how the customer would want their guitar too look with the level of ageing.

The headstock and neck was aged and stained, along with a specialist stain worked in the fingerboard to give the whole neck a played in and worn feel.

Once the neck was complete, work began on the board, this is time consuming work as the finish is slowly worked away to provide complete control on the look of the guitar. The progress photos were sent to the customer so they could say how much ageing they wanted.

The body complete, the hardware was added for the customer to see how the guitar would look, so they could approve the appearance before assembly could begin. At this stage the scratchplate and backplate were aged too.

The guitar was then reassembled and set back up to it's original setup before the work began. The end result was a unique guitar that looked like it had been played hard for many years!

There's plenty of photos of the finished guitar in the gallery below.

Please get in touch with us if you're interested in finding out more about our custom relic finishes on your guitar!

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Custom wiring looms!

7/8/2017

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Here's a few pictures of some custom wiring looms for SG's that we have been asked to wire up recently, using a mixture of new and reused parts supplied by the customer.

The top two pictures are the classic 'Jimmy Page' wiring using 4 push/pull pots to coil tap each pickup, with reverse phase and series/parallel as the other two options.
The bottom two looms are a 50's wiring Les Paul/SG with bumblebee capacitors and a cheeky twist of non load tone pots. The other is a 'Van Halen' with the option to coil tap if needed.

Please get in touch if you're after a custom wiring upgrade on your guitar or bass!

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Summer Repairs

Vintage Kay Bass Bridge Replacement

Custom Relic finish on Fender Stratocaster

Custom wiring looms!

Lewis Durtnall

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